Tidings

>The Gallup poll has mixed news about the strength of U.S. religion. Since 1970 there has been a marked increase, from 14% to 31%, in the number of people who think religion is gaining in influence. However, a majority (56%) still think that religion's influence is declining. In the same survey, Gallup found a hefty 62% who believe that religion can answer all or most of mankind's problems. But that is well below the 81% who thought the same back in 1957.

> After his wife was shot dead by a deranged man during Sunday services last June, the Rev. Martin Luther King Sr., pastor of Atlanta's Ebenezer Baptist Church for 44 years, decided to retire. The pulpit made famous by his son and co-pastor, the late Martin Luther King Jr., would have been a choice appointment for one of the thousands of black Baptist preachers in the U.S. Instead, at "Daddy" King's urging, the church chose Joseph L. Roberts, 39, an able social-action executive with the Presbyterian Church in the U.S. (Southern) who had often preached at Ebenezer. That raised one small doctrinal problem. As an infant, Roberts had been baptized only by sprinkling. In order to become a full member of the Baptist church, he was totally immersed by King as the choir sang Amazing Grace. The Presbyterians will soon decide whether new Baptist Roberts can continue to hold membership in both denominations.

> The Vatican is the latest victim to complain of economic woes. Last week Jean Cardinal Villot, the Secretary of State, revealed that Pope Paul had named a special commission to trim expenses, after rejecting the proposed 1975 budget as being too costly. One factor in the budget was new pay raises in response to Rome's severe inflation. Nuns on the Vatican switchboard will get salaries of $238 a month, and cardinals who head congregations, $1,086 a month. As to how its investment portfolio was faring, the Vatican was as tight-lipped as ever.

> It was an awkward place to die. The Bishop of Montauban, Roger Tort, 56, was found dead from a heart attack in the hallway of a hotel frequented by prostitutes in Paris' Rue St. Denis area. Just eight months ago, the renowned Jean Cardinal Danielou died at the age of 69 in the apartment of a young Parisian who reportedly worked in a cabaret, and the church ignored demands that it investigate. But last week Francois Cardinal Marty, archbishop of Paris, ordered a special church commission to look into the "exact circumstances" of Tort's demise.

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