UNITED STATES
Vatican Insider
Gallup has conducted a poll on the Pope’s popularity, two months before he is due to visit New York, Washington and Philadelphia. Francis’ favourability rating in the US has dropped since February 2014
ANDREA TORNIELLI
VATICAN CITY
He is still popular, but not super-popular as he was a year ago. This is the picture that emerges from a poll conducted in the US between 8 and 12 July by consulting company Gallup.
The results were published on Wednesday 22 July, just two months before Francis is due to arrive in the US, where he will be visiting New York, Washington and Philadelphia after his stop-over in Cuba. 59% of Americans have a favourable opinion of Pope Francis while 16% have an unfavourable opinion of him and 25% has no opinion of him or has never heard of him. It is interesting to compare these results to those of previous polls about Francis conducted by Gallup.
A month after his election in April 2013, Pope Francis had a 58% favourability rating in the US against 10% who had an unfavourable opinion of him. 31% did not have an opinion about him or had never heard of him.
Francis’ popularity shot up in February 2014, when, according to Gallup, 76% of Americans had a favourable opinion of the Pope, 9% did not and 16% had no opinion of him or had never heard of him.
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