Much trust in the Pope, as usual

The very high +59 (correctly rounded) trust rating—72 percent trustful and only 12 percent distrustful—of Pope Francis in the latest Social Weather Survey is the normal regard of Filipinos for a pope. It is the same as Francis’ +59 trust rating in September 2013, six months into his papacy.

The SWS survey archives also have four trust ratings for Pope John Paul II, and one for Pope Benedict. In December 1994, John Paul II’s net rating was +65, which is in the SWS +50 to +69 range for Very Good. That was 13 years after his first Philippine visit in February 1981.

The second SWS survey on John Paul II was in April 1995, soon after his second Philippine visit, for World Youth Day in January 1995. This time his trust rating was +72, which SWS classifies as Excellent (+70 or more).   John Paul II also had Very Good trust ratings of +58 in December 2003 and +62 in March 2005. On April 4, 2005, two days after he died, SWS issued the report, “Pope John Paul II still the person most respected by Filipinos in the entire world.”

In May 2005, the net trust rating of newly-installed Pope Benedict was +58. It was the only time he was included in an SWS survey; he stepped down, unexpectedly, in 2013. Thus the December 2014 trust rating of Pope Francis simply shows continuity in Filipinos’ high regard for the Roman pontiff over two decades.

Trust of non-Catholics in the Pope. The survey ratings cited above are for all Filipinos, regardless of religion. Catholics are, of course, highly dominant. In the December 2014 sample, 80 percent were Catholic, 4 percent were members of Iglesia ni Cristo, 6 percent were Muslim, and 10 percent were Christians of other denominations (i.e., neither Catholics nor INCs).

SWS’ practice in computing trust ratings is to include only those aware of the person rated—awareness of Francis in the December 2014 survey being 96 percent of Catholics, 91 percent of INCs, 87 percent of Muslims, and 94 percent of Other Christians. Thus, the SWS rating excludes the 4 percent of Catholics, 9 percent of INCs, 13 percent of Muslims, and 6 percent of Other Christians, who said they knew nothing about Pope Francis.

The SWS questionnaire item has a 5-point trust scale and an awareness check: “…sabihin kung ang pagtitiwala ninyo kay __ ay napakalaki, medyo malaki, hindi tiyak kung malaki o maliit, medyo maliit, napakaliit, o wala pa kayong narinig o nabasa kahit na kailan tungkol kay __?” (“…tell us if your trust in __ is very much, somewhat much, undecided if much or little, somewhat little, very little, or have you not heard or read anything about __?”). The respondent is given, up-front, two degrees of trust, two degrees of distrust, and a neutral option to choose from. This type of question, with the middle option, is superior to a forced choice between trust and distrust. It is used in face-to-face interviewing, while the forced-choice version is common in telephone interviewing where openly providing the middle option is too clumsy.

Pope Francis’ +59 trust rating in December 2014 is the national average of +68 among Catholics, +33 among INCs, -8 among Muslims, and +40 among Other Christians, considering only those aware of him. His rating among Catholics is very close to the SWS standard for Excellent. His ratings among INCs and Other Christian Filipinos are in the SWS category of Good (from +30 to +49). Among Muslim Filipinos, his single-digit score is in the category of Neutral (from +9 to -9, indistinguishable from 0). It is but natural for a pope to be more trusted by Catholics than by those of other religions.

A cross-country survey about Francis. Last month, the Pew Research Center issued a report, “Pope Francis’ image positive in much of the world” (12/11/2014), based on national surveys in nine Latin American countries over October 2013 to March 2014 (average 1,618 respondents per country) and in 34 countries over March to June 2014 (average 1,071 per country). The Philippine portion was done on May 1-21, 2014, on a sample of 1,008 respondents.

It shows Francis’ favorability percentage among Catholics topping at 98 in his native Argentina, very closely followed by 97 in Italy, and 95 in the Philippines and Poland. This percentage counts the two responses of “very favorable” and “somewhat favorable” to a 4-point question, with “somewhat unfavorable” and “very unfavorable” as the two other response-options, and “never heard,” “can’t rate,” and “don’t know/refused” as responses accepted if volunteered.

Taking all religions together, Pew’s favorability-unfavorability percentages are 91-3 in Argentina, 91-5 in Italy, 92-3 in Poland, and 88-6 for the Philippines. The missing balances from 100 are the volunteered responses, mainly from those unaware of Francis.

In every country of the Pew study, the favorability percentage is much higher among Catholics than non-Catholics. The only cases with favorability below unfavorability are Tunisia 12-16, Turkey 14-32, Palestine 14-23, and Jordan 25-34. Several primarily Muslim countries have a favorable image: Bangladesh 47-28, Nigeria 44-11, Egypt 37-35, Indonesia 31-12, Malaysia 19-4, and Pakistan 10-5.

However, the Pew study does not cover some important Muslim countries like Afghanistan, Algeria, Libya, Iran, Iraq, Syria, and Saudi Arabia. Apart from this limitation, one can say that most countries of the world, and not only Christian ones, have a favorable view of Pope Francis.

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Contact mahar.mangahas@sws.org.ph