I am not certain that this is true. The people loved St. Francis before the popes did. I expect that they loved orthodoxy before many of the bishops did, too.
Joe Schmoe may not have understood all of the mass, but he knew it was the mass. That is more than some bishops knew. In such a case, who should obey whom?
Joe also loved the Blessed Mother, so he prayed the rosary. First Joe prayed, then the Church ratified it. Based on the tradition, the bishop can say “Pray the rosary, Ye Sons of Joe.”
If tomorrow the bishop says “Do not pray the rosary,” who is right, the Schmoes or the bishop?
Modernists tend to superimpose their own rebellion on traditionalists. They are running from tradition, and carry some bishops with them. Then, noting the distance that has opened between them and the traditionalists, they accuse the traditionalists of “distancing themselves.” There is a great difference between a stationary person and a running person, however.
I think a lot of these issues can be illuminated by giving consideration to the principles expressed in Canon 212 of the Code of Canon Law:
Can. 212 §1. Conscious of their own responsibility, the Christian faithful are bound to follow with Christian obedience those things which the sacred pastors, inasmuch as they represent Christ, declare as teachers of the faith or establish as rulers of the Church.
§2. The Christian faithful are free to make known to the pastors of the Church their needs, especially spiritual ones, and their desires.
§3. According to the knowledge, competence, and prestige which they possess, they have the right and even at times the duty to manifest to the sacred pastors their opinion on matters which pertain to the good of the Church and to make their opinion known to the rest of the Christian faithful, without prejudice to the integrity of faith and morals, with reverence toward their pastors, and attentive to common advantage and the dignity of persons.
You are “free to make known” your needs and desires, and you have the “right and even at times the duty” to express your opinion. In the end, however, you are “bound to follow with Christian obedience” the judgments that your sacred pastors “declare as teachers of the faith or establish as rulers of the Church.”
It is, I have to say, a fundamentally modernist hermeneutic under which we expect that, by ourselves, we investigate history and tradition, determine its principles, and then judge our obedience to the present Church hierarchy according to how well they match up to our conception of tradition. So if a bishop says, “I have determined that it is wrong to pray the Rosary, and you must stop,” but the people say, “This guy’s gone off the reservation; we don’t have to listen to him!” and do it anyway, who’s wrong? They both are: the bishop for making a bad judgment, and the people for disregarding their sacred pastor based on their own preferences and conceptions, rather than making their case to the bishop or to the pope.
This is the same fundamentally modernist form of traditionalism, by the way, under which some people decide, “I will read the documents of Trent and the old catechisms for myself, investigate what they mean, and then judge whether Vatican II and modern popes have changed doctrine or committed heresy.” It’s the
sola scriptura approach to traditionalism, through which every individual must first determine for himself the tenets of the faith – not from the Bible, of course, but from old Church documents.
That’s a little off topic, but it’s related to the roots of your question, “If someone prefers the old form, and that is not bad, then does that person not have the right as a Christian to demand it?”, to which the answer is, “No, you do not have a right ‘as a Christian’ to demand that your preferences be put into effect.”
