Pope Francis’s plunging approval ratings are primarily a reflection of how he has handled the clerical sex abuse crisis, said the director of the Pew Research Center Monday.
In a SiriusXM radio interview on the Catholic Channel Monday, Pew director Alan Cooperman said that the pope’s negative ratings had tripled, which is directly related to the way he has dealt with the sexual abuse crisis in the Church.
“Back in 2014, 54 percent of American Catholics thought he was doing a good or excellent job,” Mr. Cooperman said. “Today it’s down to just 3 in 10, 30 percent of U.S. Catholics giving him a good or excellent, dropping 24 points in four years, 14 points just from the beginning of 2018.”
“For a while, he had a far higher favorability than Benedict, but I think that now he’s dropped down to Benedict’s level and even below it,” he added.