Only fifteen percent of Americans view Pope Benedict XVI in a positive light, while 24 percent see him negatively following the surfacing of sexual abuse cases linked to him, according to a new CBS News poll.
A year ago, the Pope’s unfavorable rating was just four percent.
The poll found that more than two in three Americans say the Pope has done a bad job in handling charges of abuse by priests, while just 13 percent say the Pope, who has been serving since April 2005, has done a good job on the issue.
Among Catholics, the Pope's favorable rating has fallen 13 points, from 40 percent in 2006 to 27 percent today, the poll found.
His unfavorable rating has increased ten points to 11 percent.
And the percentage of Catholics who are "undecided" about the pope has risen 21 points, to 36 percent, the survey said.
On Friday, it emerged that the Catholic Church waited more than ten years to defrock a pedophile priest despite an Arizona bishop's appeal to Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, who would become Pope Benedict XVI, to remove him from priesthood.
