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Pope Francis Gets Thumbs-up from Americans

By Joel Connelly
Seattle PI
December 12, 2013

http://blog.seattlepi.com/seattlepolitics/2013/12/11/poll-pope-francis-gets-thumbs-up-from-americans/

Pope Francis: Americans like him, Catholics say he makes them feel better about the church.

A whopping 57 percent of Americans take a favorable view toward Pope Francis, nearly twice as many as viewed positively predecessor Pope Benedict XVI at his retirement, according to an NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll released Wednesday.

Only 5 percent have a negative view of the Argentine Jesuit who sits on the throne of Peter. Others have no opinion or do not know the man chosen Tuesday as Time’s “Person of the Year.”

Just nine months into his job, Francis has connected strongly with America’s Catholics, millions of who have become disaffected with their church over its removed, authoritarian hierarchy and bishops’ mishandling of clerical sex abuse scandals.

Pope Francis gets a thumbs-up from 76 percent of U.S. Catholics and 74 percent of the faithful aged 18-49. Just 45 percent of young Catholics had a positive view of Benedict XVI when he resigned last spring.

Fifty-eight percent of Catholics surveyed said Francis has made them more favorably disposed toward the church.

A second poll, by ABC News and the Washington Post, found that 64 percent of American adults — and a whopping 85 percent of Catholics — approve of the direction in which Pope Francis is taking the church.

The ABC/Post poll found Francis more popular with Democrats (77 percent) and liberals (75 percent) than Republicans (68 percent) and those describing themselves as conservatives (67 percent).

Pope Francis has shed regal trappings of the papacy, reached out to the poor, visited refugees, and sharply criticized such excesses of capitalism as “trickle down” economics. He has spoken of bishops becoming “obsessed” with such issues as contraception, same-sex marriage and abortion when they should be exemplars of Christ’s love.

Overall, the Catholic Church is still on somewhat uneven footing with Americans. The sex abuse scandal broke 11 years ago, and still continues to rock such places as the Archdiocese of Minneapolis-St. Paul. Intemperate actions continue to come from the hierarchy, such as the bishop of Springfield conducting an exorcism in his cathedral after the Illinois Legislature approved marriage equality.

Thirty-six percent of Americans have a positive view of the Catholic Church, up from 31 percent before Pope Francis was installed. Seventeen percent have a negative view, down from 26 percent in February when the academic, discipline-minded Benedict was still in office. Forty two percent said they were neutral.

The NBC/WSJ poll of 1,000 Americans was taken December 4-8 and has a margin of error of plus/minus 3.1 percent.

 

 

 

 

 




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