By Gina Christian, OSV News
A little more than a month after his election, the pope Leo XIV is enjoying positive reviews from the majority of the country's Catholics, according to a new survey.
The Public Affairs Research Center Associated Press-NORC from the University of Chicago surveyed 1,158 U.S. adults between June 5 and 9 via telephone and Web questionnaires administered in English and Spanish, and participants received "a small monetary incentive" for completing the survey, according to the researchers.
65% of U.S. Catholics view the new pope "very" or "somewhat" favorably, 29% respond that they do not know enough to form an opinion and 6% report an unfavorable opinion.
In contrast, an October 2015 AP-NORC poll of 1058 adults showed that 59% of U.S. Catholics approved of Pope Francis, 26% did not have enough information to say and 15% disapproved. This survey was conducted more than two years after the election of Pope Francis in March 2013.
In both the 2015 and 2025 surveys, 44% of U.S. adults expressed favorable opinions about the current pope. Another 46% stated in the 2025 survey that they did not know enough about Pope Leo, while in 2015, 42% indicated the same about Pope Francis. In the 2025 survey, 10% of the country's adults expressed disapproval of Pope Leo, while 13% said the same of Pope Francis in 2015.
Opinions by Republican and Democratic voters
AP reported that the poll "found no discernible partisan divide among Catholics over Pope Leo, and Catholics across the ideological spectrum have expressed hope that Leo can heal some of the divisions that arose during the pontificate of his predecessor, Pope Francis."
Members of other religious groups are more likely to be "still forming an opinion" about Pope Leo, according to the AP. Specifically, about half of born-again Protestants (also known as evangelicals), mainline Protestants and those unaffiliated with any religion disagreed on an opinion of Pope Leo, and 1 in 10 had an unfavorable view of him, according to AP-NORC.
Approximately half of the country's adults over the age of 60 approve of Pope Leo, while 4 in 10 of those under the age of 30 view him favorably and only 1 in 10 of those under 30 disapprove.
