BishopAccountability.org
	Catholic Sex Abuse Scandal Harming Pope's Poll Numbers By Bonnie Erbe, Thomas Jefferson U.S. News & World Report April 19, 2010 http://www.usnews.com/blogs/erbe/2010/04/19/catholic-sex-abuse-scandal-harming-popes-poll-numbers.html Everybody has been talking about it. But now we have quantified data proving the point: Most Americans and most Catholic Americans think the Pope has done a terrible job dealing with the priest pedophilia scandal. CNN/Opinion Research Corp. survey results released Friday also indicate that recent revelations about that matter have hurt the pope's standing with the public: Fifty-nine percent of American Catholics questioned in the poll have a favorable view of the pope, down 19 points from February. Among all Americans, the slippage is even greater: from 59 percent in February to just 35 percent today. "Only a quarter of U.S. Catholics have an unfavorable view of the pope, but they don't seem satisfied with his track record on the growing and persistent scandal within the church," CNN Polling Director Keating Holland said. Now, does anyone really think the Church or the Pope might re-think how to handle this ongoing tragedy and the public relations disaster it has created for the Church? Of course not! This is an institution, governed as it always has been, by fallible and often corrupt human beings. If anyone still believes the Pope has any sort of connection to God, I would like that person to explain how he or she can possibly continue to believe that such a connection exists under current circumstances. Please avoid using excuses for what the Church leadership has done. They provide no insight to those of us outside the church as we try hard to understand what keeps people in the church.
Any original material on these pages is copyright © BishopAccountability.org 2004. Reproduce freely with attribution.