The natural response to apostolic traditions is to take them all. Scripture, liturgy, episcopacy, sacraments—why choose? The various parts of the Catholic patrimony work together and form a whole. One tradition, however, is composed of living men capable of attacking the rest: the episcopacy. Many think this impossible, but we have lived through 50 years of it. The bishops attacked the traditional liturgy, then backed off, and are now attacking again. In this situation, one must choose.
The natural choice is to take the apostolic tradition that does not attack the rest. An apostolic tradition has authority precisely because it is apostolic. And how apostolic is it to attack another apostolic tradition? Not very much.
The traditional liturgy of the Western Church is apostolic in origin. According to Msgr. Klaus Gamber:
“In contrast to the liturgies of the Eastern Church, which continued their development well into the Middle Ages, but remained fixed thereafter, the Roman liturgy, in its simple, even plain forms, which originated in early Christianity, has remained almost unchanged for centuries. There is no question that the Roman liturgy is the oldest Christian rite.” The Reform of the Roman Liturgy: Its Problems and Background, p. 10.
Bishops who ask the faithful to leave the traditional liturgy for one of the bishops’ own creation are thus acting bureaucratically, not apostolically. Although this writer was born under the traditional liturgy, he was manipulated into accepting the bishops’ creation. He is not sure he could survive another imposition. He does not want to choose, but if forced to do so, he will probably choose the traditional liturgy, not the traditional episcopacy.