A new survey finds that Pope Francis retains high levels of support among US Catholics across the board, and most church members either aren’t aware of or have no opinion about recent controversial changes the Pope has made to rules about the Latin Mass.
But researchers pointed to persistent partisan divides in how the US faithful view the pontiff, another signal Catholicism is not immune to domestic polarisation trends.
According to a poll conducted by the Pew Research Center last month (20th to 26th September), the vast majority of Catholics (83 per cent) hold a favourable view of Francis, compared with just 14 per cent who view him unfavourably. Those views are virtually unchanged since March, when 82 per cent viewed the Pope favourably.
In fact, Francis’ current favourability rating among Catholics is almost identical to when Pew first polled on the subject in March, 2013 (84 per cent), although, researchers were careful to note, Pew shifted to an online surveying method in 2020 – a departure from their accustomed telephone calls.
Americans overall rate Francis somewhat lower, though still favorably: 60 per cent view him favourably, down slightly from 64 per cent earlier this year. Around a quarter of the country – 28 per cent – views him unfavorably, and 11 per cent did not respond to the question.
There are partisan differences, however. While 71 per cent of Catholic Republicans view Francis favourably, Catholic Democrats are 20 percentage points more likely to say the same. Catholic Republicans are also far more likely to say the pope is “too liberal” (49 per cent) than are Democrats (16 per cent). In addition, GOP Catholics are more likely to cast Francis as “naive” (34 per cent) than Catholic Democrats (16 per cent).
There are also slight differences regarding how Catholics view the health of the pontiff, who recently underwent surgery. Most Democrats (57 per cent) say the Pope is “in good physical health,” whereas fewer than half of Republicans (45 per cent) say the same.
And when asked about Francis’ recent decision to reverse a move by his predecessor, Pope Benedict XVI, and reimpose restrictions on Mass conducted in Latin, Republican Catholics were more likely to say they disagreed with the shift (20 per cent) than Democrats in the faith (six per cent).
But among Catholics overall, a sizable majority (65 per cent) said they had not even heard about the restrictions, and an additional 14 per cent said they had no opinion on the matter. Catholics who attend Mass at least weekly were the only subgroup where a majority had heard about the issue: 29 per cent said they disapproved, 11 per cent said they approved, and 17 per cent had no opinion.
The poll had a margin of error of 1.9 percentage points overall, and 4.3 percentage points for Catholic respondents.
