Call Me A Cock-Eyed Optimist

And not just because I awoke this morning with one eyelid swollen just enough to make the eye look strange. No, call me that because like Ronald Reagan, I figure there's gotta be a pony somewhere in a story like this. Not that I think members of the curia --even the Pope-- are beyond fault or beyond criticism (the Wielgus affair does raise questions about the vetting process for bishops), but when curial staffers start leaking to the secular press in this fashion:

Marco Politi, the respected Vatican reporter for La Repubblica newspaper, said many officials in the Curia, the church's central government, resent the conservative pontiff and see him as "a man of the past."

or this:

Benedict, who is more used to playing a low-key role as John Paul's personal theologian, evidently has had difficulty becoming a team leader.
"For months, Benedict appeared isolated, closed up in his study polishing his speeches, writing his book on Jesus of Nazareth to be published in April or playing the piano," said Ignazio Ingrao, who writes for Panorama. "His only outings were dinners at the home of his former secretary, Monsignor Josef Clemens. He has paid dearly for not being a team player."

I take it to mean: "we're not getting our way." Secular media cover the Vatican only in 3 instances. When the event is so big they have to (death of JP II); to report scandal; and to obstruct orthodoxy. This smells like the latter.