[RobbyS]

But neither you nor I have the right to make such distinctions. Boniface VIII made some way-out claims of direct secular authority which were supported by many in Rome for a long while. In the end they were rejected by Bellarmin when Sixtus V, his boss, began to entertain them. The Jebbie would have lost his job had not the pope died.

[ultima ratio]

So what are you saying? Certainly we know what a tradition is--or else language has lost all meaning. The Pope takes an oath not to alter Tradition. Tradition is called "God-given" in the Papal Oath. Vatican I affirms that the popes must guard Sacred Tradition--which it identifies with revelation. Tradition is accordingly that which has been received from the apostles themselves--handed-down to us through the ages. By this definition the old Latin Mass is above all else traditional and apostolic. Ratzinger himself says--as did Pius XII--that it had evolved under the guidance of the Holy Spirit. The new liturgy, on the other hand, was fabricated out of whole cloth by an ad hoc committee and is the very antithesis of something traditional, being an innovation that breaks with our Catholic past. None of this is obscure.