US views of Francis dim; a plunge in approval ratings

The pope’s favorability rating among Americans has plummeted in the past year and a half, according to a new poll, although he still retains a wholly positive reputation.

The survey was conducted from July 8 to 12, three weeks after the pope released his bombshell teaching document proclaiming climate change largely man-made and excoriating an economic system he said drives global warming and exploits the poor.

His steepest favorability drop was among Americans who call themselves conservative, from 72 percent to 45 percent.

The decline in his favorable rating reflects, in part, the increase in the percentage of Americans who don’t have an opinion of the pope, but also a sharp drop in favorable opinions among Catholics and political conservatives.

Pope Francis’ favorability score is now 59 percent, down from 76 percent in early 2014.

The latest poll of 1009 USA adults has a margin of error of 4 percentage points.

Catholic conservatives have also expressed discomfort with Francis’ style and emphasis. John Gehring, Catholic program director at Faith in Public Life, a liberal advocacy group in Washington, said, “some progressives naively expected him to overturn church teaching on abortion, contraception and same-sex marriage”. (Moderates, fittingly, shifted their views the least; the pope lost only 8 percentage points with them.).

After his surge in overall popularity a year ago, the pope’s approval ratings are now back to the level they were soon after he was elected in 2013, according to Gallup.

The Gallup findings differ from those in another recent poll – a survey from Pew Research in February that found the pope’s popularity among Americans has never been higher.

The pope will be traveling to New York, Philadelphia and Washington, D.C., and will be the first pope to address a joint session of Congress. Pope John Paul II’s image was boosted by his trips to the U.S.in 1993 and 1999, and Pope Benedict received his greatest favorability rating – 63% – when he visited the U.S.in 2008.

His environmental encyclical, “Laudato Si”, the first such papal pronouncement to focus on climate change, met with a lukewarm response from US Republican presidential hopefuls, including former Florida Governor Jeb Bush and US Senator Marco Rubio, both of whom are Catholic.

“These poll numbers are not surprising and as a matter of fact you could even say there is an upside to them in the sense that it shows people are listening to the pope”, said the Rev. James Bretzke, a professor of moral theology at Boston College.