(RNS) Growing conservative disaffection with Pope Francis appears to be taking a toll on his once teflon-grade popularity in the U.S., with a new Gallup poll showing the pontiff’s favorability rating among all Americans dropping to 59 percent from a 76 percent peak early last year.
Among conservatives the dropoff has been especially sharp: just 45 percent view Francis favorably today as opposed to 72 percent a year ago.
“This decline may be attributable to the pope’s denouncing of ‘the idolatry of money’ and attributing climate change partially to human activity, along with his passionate focus on income inequality — all issues that are at odds with many conservatives’ beliefs,” wrote Gallup analyst Art Swift.
But liberal fervor for the Argentine pope, who was elected to great acclaim in March 2013, has also cooled, dropping an average of 14 points.
Some observers have predicted that many who embraced the pope’s candor and his views on a range of social justice issues would temper their ardor as they realized he would not change church teachings on hot-button issues like abortion or contraception or gay marriage.
In addition, the number of those who expressed “no opinion” about the pope rose from 16 to 25 percent.
The decline comes just as American Catholics are set to welcome the pope this September for his first visit to the U.S. It essentially returns Francis to approval levels he had in the first months after his election.
The decline does appears to be relatively recent, and swift: a Pew Research Center survey from last February showed Francis’ approval rating among all Americans at 70 percent, and at a remarkable 90 percent among all Catholics.
That number had been steadily increasing, among Republicans and conservatives, as well, despite their concerns that Francis was not stressing issues like abortion while highlighting social justice themes.
But the Gallup poll, which has a margin of error of plus or minus 4 percentage points, was conducted earlier this month in the middle of Francis’ visit to three countries in Latin America during which he delivered some of his most powerful remarks ever on economic justice and environmental protection.
That prompted Western journalists on the papal plane, with a view to Francis’ upcoming U.S. visit, to ask whether he needs to say more about “the middle class, that is, the working people, the people who pay taxes, normal people.”
Francis responded by saying that he needed to address that aspect of his message and would read his critics ahead of the Sept. 22-27 U.S. trip.
But do the latest poll numbers indicate it is too late?
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