Church more popular in US after Pope's visit, survey reveals

Americans have a more positive view of the Catholic Church now thanks to Pope Francis’ visit to the US last month, a new survey has revealed.

Non-Catholics in particular have reacted positively to the visit with 65 per cent of those polled saying that they viewed the Church in a better light after the trip to Washington, New York and Philadelphia in September. And the Pope was most popular among Democrats, ideological liberals and moderates, according to the figures from the Pew Research Center - with Democrats recording an 80 per cent approval rating.

But the view of the Pope among Republicans has fallen from 73 per cent in February this year to 67 per cent in October, though there was a slight bounce from the trip as his approval rating had fallen to as low as 61 per cent among Republicans in June this year.

Meanwhile, half of all American adults said that they kept very close tabs on the papal visit, compared with 60 per cent of Catholics.

To put those figures into context, in a poll earlier this year 43 per cent of Americans said that they followed President Barack Obama’s State of the Union address very closely.

But Pope Francis’ rating among committed US Catholics, who go to Church at least once a week, has dipped since the visit: with 84 per cent viewing the Pope favourably compared to 95 per cent in February this year.

Elsewhere, a separate poll has suggested that US Catholics are more likely to go to church and donate more money to Catholic causes since the Pope visit.

The research from Saint Leo Polling Institute found more than half of US Catholics surveyed would increase their attendance at church, while almost 40 per cent said that they would give more after the Pope’s visit.

New Yorkers flocked to Central Park to see Pope Francis in the sunshine during his visit last month (PA)

"People sometimes wonder why the visit of a pope can have such importance for Catholics. Catholic spirituality is a sacramental spirituality," said Dr Michael Anthony Novak, a theologian at Saint Leo University.

"That means that Catholics see visible things as being signs of God's invisible activity in the world: in the bread and wine of the Eucharist, or in the water of Baptism, to point to two major examples.

“In the same way, the pope's actual job is to be the center of unity in the Catholic Church: he is the bishop of Rome, united with all the other bishops of the world,” he added.

“When Catholics encounter the pope, they can get a stronger sense of the unity in love that they experience in God, because the pope - in his office and in his person - is the visible sign of that unity within the global Catholic Church."