Benedict seen as isolated at Vatican

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VATICAN CITY -- The forced resignation of Pope Benedict XVI's handpicked choice for archbishop of Warsaw, Stanislaw Wielgus, has exposed divisions within the Vatican, which insiders say have left the pontiff increasingly isolated.

"Benedict does not have a decisive temperament and must take into account his age," said the Italian Panorama newsmagazine. "The initiatives he has taken are meeting with much resistance."

Bishop Wielgus announced his resignation on Jan. 9, just two days after accepting the post, in the face of disclosures that he had been an agent for Poland's communist secret service for decades and twice attended its spy school.

Benedict had passed over six other candidates to select Bishop Wielgus for the post, actions that suggest he was at best poorly advised by his entourage, Vatican sources say.

The Vatican declined to comment for this article.

The controversy over Bishop Wielgus recalled the Muslim furor over a papal speech last year at the University of Regensburg in Germany. Afterward, Vatican watchers asked why the pope's aides had not spotted the potentially offensive remarks in the text and removed them in advance.

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."

As he prepares to celebrate his 80th birthday on April 16, Benedict evidently has fostered resentment by trying to sideline several Polish clerics appointed to senior Vatican posts by Polish-born John Paul II, who died in 2005.

Cardinal Edmund Szoka, a Polish-American, was replaced as governor of Vatican City, responsible for the day-to-day running of the tiny state in Rome.

Also planned is the transfer of Edward Nowak, the secretary for the Congregation of Saints, the body that rules on requests for sainthood, according to Panorama.