Tidings

> Topic A around the Vatician these days is whether Pope Paul VI will resign when he reached 75 on Sept. 26. In 1966 Paul urged that bishops retire at 75. Shortly thereafter, he titillated papal observers with an odd pilgrimage to the castle associated with Pope Celestine V, who quit the papacy in 1294 after only five months in office. Within the past month, two Rome weeklies have primed the speculation. L'Espresso ran a poll of Curia opinions on whether Paul would step down (65% said no), and Il Mondo suggested waggishly that an unnamed cardinal was making book on the question. There are good reasons for Paul's retirement to be doubtful. For one thing, it would tend to reduce the office of Christ's Vicar on Earth by giving it a Protestant-style, temporal term. For another, what is there for a Pope emeritus to do? Celestine planned to retire to a monastery, but his successor imprisoned him in his castle until his death.

> Speculation about retirement also surrounds the leader of world Anglicanism, the Archbishop of Canterbury. Most of his predecessors have held, Pope-like, to their posts until death. But the previous archbishop, Geoffrey Fisher, resigned in 1961 right after one of his great achievements, the historic visit to Pope John XXIII. Incumbent Archbishop Michael Ramsey, 67, is rumored to be considering a similar move if this week's Anglican Synod approves his dream of a merger with the Methodists in Great Britain. The merger failed once before to achieve the necessary 75% approval, however, and prospects this time look little better.

> For more than four years, the Bank of Korea has sought a design for its forthcoming 10,000-won ($25) note that would symbolize Korea's cultural heritage. The bank recently released pictures of its choice: an engraving of a sitting Buddha on one side and a famous Buddhist temple on the other. "Discrimination," howled South Korea's 2.5 million Christians, 2 million Confucianists and 1.5 million members of splinter sects. The Christians charged that the design violated the spirit of a law prohibiting a state religion. Most offended of all, however, were the nation's 4 million Buddhists, who consider it an insult to link the Buddha to something as crass as cash. Last week President Chung Hee Park ordered the bank to redesign the note.

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