Confidence in Pope Plunges…
By a two-to-one margin, American Catholics now give Francis negative marks for his handling of the sex abuse scandal
https://web.archive.org/web/20181003022223/http://www.pewforum.org/2018/10/02/confidence-in-pope-francis-down-sharply-in-u-s/
As allegations and investigations of sex abuse in the Catholic Church become more widespread, a new Pew Research Center survey finds that confidence in the way Pope Francis is handling the crisis has plummeted among U.S. Catholics. Just three-in-ten Catholic adults say Francis is doing an “excellent” or a “good” job addressing the issue, which is down 24 points since 2015 and 14 points from when Pew Research Center last asked the question in January of this year. While seven-in-ten American Catholics say their overall opinion of Pope Francis is favorable, six-in-ten now say he is doing an “only fair” or “poor” job handling the sex abuse scandal, including 36% who say his efforts on this front have been poor. This is nearly double the share who said he was doing a poor job at the beginning of this year, and triple the share who said this in 2015.
The declining confidence in Francis’ handling of the sex abuse crisis is broad-based, occurring across a wide variety of subgroups of U.S. Catholics. Since 2015, for instance, the share who give the pope “excellent” or “good” ratings for his handling of the issue declined by 24 points among Catholic men and 23 points among Catholic women. Similarly, both younger and older Catholics have grown increasingly critical of the pontiff’s handling of the situation. Even among Catholics who say they attend Mass weekly, the share who give Francis positive marks for his handling of the sex abuse crisis has been cut in half since 2015; 34% in this group now give Francis “excellent” or “good” ratings for his handling of the issue, whereas 67% gave him a positive evaluation in 2015.
When asked about their overall opinion of Pope Francis, roughly seven-in-ten U.S. Catholics now say they have a favorable opinion of the pontiff, down 12 points since the beginning of the year. The decline is especially evident in the share of American Catholics who say they have a very favorable opinion of the pope, which now stands at 30%. By comparison, previous Pew Research Center surveys have generally found that four-in-ten or more Catholics (and as many as 62% in October 2015) hold Francis in the highest regard. These are among the key findings of a new national survey by Pew Research Center, conducted Sept. 18 to 24 among 1,754 adults, including 336 Catholics. Among the U.S. public as a whole (including both Catholics and non-Catholics), roughly half say they have a favorable view of Pope Francis, which is the lowest rating he has received in nine Pew Research Center surveys that have asked about Pope Francis since the beginning of his pontificate in 2013. Until now, Francis has generally earned higher favorability ratings from the U.S. public than did Pope Benedict XVI. In the new survey, however, Francis’ favorability rating is on par with the ratings typically earned by his predecessor, and significantly below the rating Benedict garnered immediately following his visit to the U.S. in April 2008 (61%).