WASHINGTON — Pope Francis’ popularity has managed to give a morale lift to the Catholic faithful in the United States at a time when scandals like child sex abuse and corruption have often overshadowed its reputation as a bedrock religion here.
According to a poll released by CBS News/New York Times on Sunday, 53 percent of Catholics say the Church is in touch with the needs of Catholics today — the highest figure since the same question was asked in 1987 when Pope John Paul II was the patriarchal head of the church in Rome.
Furthermore, 79 percent say they like the direction Pope Francis is taking the church, including more than half who say they strongly approve. Some 63 percent say they have favorable views of Pope Francis and only 3 percent have unfavorable views. Among all Americans — not just Catholics — the pope gets 41 percent favorable ratings, with just 8 percent unfavorable.
A Washington Post poll also released on Saturday finds that a whopping 86 percent of American Catholics like Pope Francis, compared to 70 percent of all Americans who have a favorable view of him (much higher than then CBS/NYT survey).
As for the institution, the Wapo poll says 81 percent of U.S. Catholics and 55 percent of all Americans have a favorable view of the church.
The pontiff began his term as head of the Roman Catholic Church in 2013 with a now famous interview, casually given to reporters ‘on the record’ on his plane, giving an unprecedented opinion on homosexuality. When asked about homosexuals in the church, he said, “Who am I to judge them if they’re seeking the Lord in good faith?” he said, stunning the press.
From there he has followed his own path — one he says is in the footsteps of his chosen saint name, St. Francis of Assisi, and the example of Jesus: washing the feet of prisoners, visiting the poverty stricken in the direst of the world’s favelas, opposing war, relaxing marriage rules, and to the consternation of many conservative Catholics, railing against climate change and the “idolatry” of capitalism.
He has 7 million followers on Twitter, and as the polls indicate, has appeal beyond his flock. Former Daily Show host and pop-culture bellweather Jon Stewart, who is Jewish, famously gushed over Francis on his show last year. “OK, that’s it — I’m converting,” he said. “I love this guy.”
His arrival in the Nation’s Capital will be a test of his popularity — tickets to his appearances have been a hot commodity, and an announced parade route is expected to draw thousands to the National Mall area. Not everyone is thrilled, of course. One congressman, Republican Rep. Paul Gosar of Arizona, says he will boycott the pope’s speech to a joint session of congress on Thursday.
In a column Thursday on the conservative website Townhall.com, Gosar wrote that he was appalled by a papal teaching document that “condemned anyone skeptical of the link between human activity and climate change.” He added that if the Pope stuck to standard Christian theology or spoke out with moral authority against violent Islam, “I would be there cheering him on.”
If the pope “urged the Western nations to rescue persecuted Christians in the Middle East, I would back him wholeheartedly,” Gosar added. “But when the pope chooses to act and talk like a leftist politician, then he can expect to be treated like one.”
Columnist George Will also offered a sharp riposte to the pope’s popularity in Washington this week, referring to the pontiff’s positions on the environment and poverty as alternately naive and desingenous, and balks at his wider popularity among non-Catholics who Will says would not like him if not for his liberal views.
… Francis’s fact-free flamboyance reduces him to a shepherd whose selectively reverent flock, genuflecting only at green altars, is tiny relative to the publicity it receives from media otherwise disdainful of his church. Secular people with anti-Catholic agendas drain his prestige, a dwindling asset, into promotion of policies inimical to the most vulnerable people and unrelated to what once was the papacy’s very different salvific mission.
He stands against modernity, rationality, science and, ultimately, the spontaneous creativity of open societies in which people and their desires are not problems but precious resources. Americans cannot simultaneously honor him and celebrate their nation’s premises.
The pope arrives on Tuesday afternoon, Sept. 22, at Andrews Air Force Base.
