ROME -- If the real work of the cardinal electors takes place over plates of pasta and bottles of wine, the same might be said of the hordes of journalists who have descended on Rome to cover the conclave. One can only glean so much from Vatican press briefings -- now suspended until the cardinal electors decide on a pope. And the Italian media can only provide so much intel -- the steady stream of leaks coming out of the cardinals' general congregations brought a rebuke from the Vatican spokesman, and caused the U.S. cardinals to stop their much-lauded daily briefings.

So the questions come with food and drink: Is there a frontrunner? Is local support for Cardinal Sean O'Malley of Boston an elaborate scheme of reverse psychology enacted by the Italian cardinals to tilt the board toward Cardinal Scola of Milan? Or does any bloc of cardinals -- even the Italians -- have the wherewithal to put together a coalition to support a candidate? Who among the Americans, with eleven electors -- nowhere near Italy's twenty-eight, but sufficient to have some influence -- has the temperament and political acumen to move his colleagues toward the kind of pope the papers claim they want: a reformer who will bring the curia to heel. And how likely is it that a man of the curia could reform it?

There seems to be unanimous agreement that the curia is in dire need of reform. It's the first thing anyone says when asked what the church needs from a new pope -- especially the cardinals themselves. When Cardinal Joao Braz de Aviz of Brazil delivered a forceful critique of the curia at one of the pre-conclave meetings of cardinals, he received a good deal of support. But what exactly is needed? And what's possible? Recall what Bernard Fellay of the schismatic Society of St. Pius X claimed Benedict XVI told him during one of their reconciliation negotiations: Gesturing toward the entrance to the room, Benedict reportedly said, "My authority ends at that door."

There is another question I keep hearing from almost everyone I speak with: Why did Benedict really resign? There are low-level conspiracy theories: He's much sicker than anyone lets on! The Vatileaks scandal goes much deeper! The curia forced him out! And some of his most ardent supporters feel betrayed: How could he just pick up and leave? He's our spiritual father.

For many, Benedict's explanation wasn't quite convincing. Yes, there's little doubt that he made his decision in complete freedom, as canon law requires. But why now? And why did he attempt to do it with such haste? Apparently the curia was as surprised as anyone, and needed to slow Benedict's initial exit strategy -- questions of law and etiquette needed answering. Where will he live? What will we call him? What color will he wear? Why is he in such a hurry?

Perhaps the answer to that last question is what's foremost on the minds of the cardinal electors: a bureaucracy whose joints have calcified, one that -- at least in some quarters -- has lost interest in responding to papal leadership. Perhaps Benedict's response to curial inertia was foreshadowed by his response to his students at Tubingen in 1968: I have tried, you are immovable, and so I'm done. If one of the most accomplished curial insiders of the past century couldn't control the bureaucracy, is there a man among the cardinal electors who can?