Sorry For The Silence

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Like Fr Blake, who is cutting his way through the same thicket as I am, I am finding it hard to drive a path back through Trent to what was before and what might/could/should have been.

The questions are about ecclesiology as much as about liturgy: why should we follow the practices of the diocese of Rome when we are in our own diocese?  Why should the Mass be separated from the rest of the Liturgy other than in monasteries?  Apart from Bishop of Rome, who do we, and he, think the Pope is?

Ignoring all of the post-1789 changes (if that's when the wheels really came off), what might the post-Reformation Reform have consisted of?

The glib answers won't do, so I continue to delve in the muniments, some of them dustier than others, and am constitutionally unable to avoid rabbit holes (did you know that the UK went to war with Germany at 11.00 pm on 4 August 1914?) so this might take a while.
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