Public: Bush Should Pay as Much Attention to Pope as to Other Leaders

GALLUP NEWS SERVICE

PRINCETON, NJ -- President Bush will meet with Pope Benedict XVI for the first time on Saturday. A recent USA Today/Gallup poll finds that most Americans believe Bush should pay attention to what the pope has to say about policy, but should pay the same attention to the pope as he pays to other world leaders. Most Americans view the pope favorably, and his favorable ratings are significantly better than the president's. Bush's job approval rating remains in the doldrums, with his latest measurement just one point above his lowest as president.

Bush and the Pope on Policy Matters

The June 1-3 USA Today/Gallup poll finds 64% of Americans saying President Bush should pay at least a moderate amount of attention to Pope Benedict's ideas and pronouncements about policy. This includes 18% who say Bush should pay "a great deal" of attention to what the pope has to say.

The majority of Americans, 59%, believe Pope Benedict deserves the same amount of attention from Bush as the president gives to other world leaders. More Americans say Bush should pay less (27%), rather than more (10%), attention to the pope in comparison with other world leaders.

U.S. Catholics are somewhat more likely than non-Catholics to say Bush should pay attention to what Pope Benedict has to say about policy, and to say that Bush should pay more attention to the pope than other world leaders, but these differences are not statistically meaningful.

Americans' Opinions About Benedict

Fifty-two percent of Americans rate Pope Benedict favorably, while just 16% have an unfavorable view and 32% have no opinion. Pope Benedict's favorable ratings have been fairly stable since he was elected pope in 2005.

Views of the current pope are somewhat less positive than those of his predecessor, the long-serving Pope John Paul II, whose favorable ratings in Gallup Polls ranged from a low of 61% to a high of 86% from 1993 to 2005. Of course, the first Gallup Poll rating of John Paul II using this question was not obtained until he had been pope for more than a decade, so it is unclear how Americans would have rated him during the early stages of his papacy.

U.S. Catholics' views of Benedict are much more positive than those of non-Catholics, as would be expected. In the current poll, 75% of Catholics view him favorably, 13% unfavorably, and 13% have no opinion. Among non-Catholics in the United States, the pope's favorable rating is much lower at 47%, but that is mainly because of the fact that a substantial proportion are not familiar enough with him to give an opinion, as opposed to having a more negative view.

Americans' Opinions About Bush

While most Americans have a positive impression of Pope Benedict, the majority have a negative opinion of President Bush. In the latest poll, 40% of Americans rate Bush favorably and 58% unfavorably. Bush's favorable rating has been below 50% since July 2005.

The current favorable rating for Bush is near his all-time low -- a 38% reading taken last November. The president's high favorable rating was 87% a few months after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.

Americans are somewhat more negative toward Bush when asked to evaluate the job he is doing as president. Just 32% approve and 62% disapprove of Bush's job performance, generally in line with what his approval rating has been in recent months. The current approval rating is just one point above Bush's low mark as president -- a 31% rating in May 2006.

Bush's approval rating has not been above 40% in more than nine months (since September 2006), and has not been at 50% in more than two years (since May 2005). Only Harry Truman (26 months from October 1950 to December 1952) and Richard Nixon (13 months from July 1973 to August 1974) have had longer runs of consistent sub-40% approval ratings since World War II.

Survey Methods

These results are based on telephone interviews with a randomly selected national sample of 1,007 adults, aged 18 and older, conducted June 1-3, 2007. For results based on this sample, one can say with 95% confidence that the maximum error attributable to sampling and other random effects is ±3 percentage points.

For results based on the 511 national adults in the Form A half-sample and 496 national adults in the Form B half-sample, the maximum margins of sampling error are ±5 percentage points.

For results based on the sample of 203 Catholics, the maximum margin of sampling error is ±8 percentage points.

For results based on the sample of 804 non-Catholics, the maximum margin of sampling error is ±4 percentage points.

In addition to sampling error, question wording and practical difficulties in conducting surveys can introduce error or bias into the findings of public opinion polls.

5. Next, we'd like to get your overall opinion of some people in the news. As I read each name, please say if you have a favorable or unfavorable opinion of these people -- or if you have never heard of them. How about -- [RANDOM ORDER]?

K. Pope Benedict the 16 ^th

Next, as you may know, President Bush will meet with Pope Benedict the sixteenth in Italy this coming week.

Q.15-16 SPLIT SAMPLED

15. Generally speaking, do you think President Bush should pay -- [ROTATED: more attention to Pope Benedict than he pays to other world leaders, the same amount of attention, or should President Bush pay less attention to Pope Benedict than he pays to other world leaders]?

BASED ON 511 NATIONAL ADULTS IN FORM A

16. Generally speaking, how much attention should President Bush pay to Pope Benedict's ideas and pronouncements about policy -- a great deal, a moderate amount, not much, or none at all?

BASED ON 496 NATIONAL ADULTS IN FORM B