Pope’s Ranking Among ‘Most Admired’ Has Slipped

Pope John Paul II is set to visit the United States at a time when his popularity here has been steadily slipping. Among young people in this country he appears to have been almost forgotten in recent years.

John Paul II started off as the most popular Pope ever, according to “most admired man” surveys by the Gallup Poll and the Gallup Youth Survey.

For most of the years between 1978 and 1987, he was second only to former President Jimmy Carter and then Ronald Reagan in the rankings of most admired men. In 1980, the Pope was first.

By 1988, however, he had slipped to third place, and by 1991, to sixth.

His rise and fall in popularity among American teen-agers has been even swifter. He was first on their list of most admired men in 1979, and between 1981 and 1985 was ranked either second or third. By 1987, his standing among teen-agers dropped to seventh and by 1989, he was 10th.

Since that time, Pope John Paul II has failed, even among Catholic youths, to find a place among the 10 men teen-agers most admire.

The pontiff still is well ahead of his predecessors in the standings of men American adults have most admired. Over the years, he has received an average ranking of third among the most admired. By comparison, Pope Paul VI and Pope Pius XII ranked only seventh, and Pope John XXIII was eighth during his short reign as supreme pontiff.

Rankings are determined by combining the responses to the following questions:

“What man that you have heard or read about, living in any part of the world, do you admire the most? And who is your second choice?”

These findings are taken from the Gallup Poll and the Gallup Youth Survey. The Gallup Polls consisted of telephone or personal interviews with random national samples of 1,000 or more adults, ages 18 and older. Gallup Youth Surveys consist of telephone interviews with randomly selected national samples of 500 or more teen-agers ages 13 through 17.

The margin of error is 3 percentage points for the surveys of adults and 4 percentage points for those of teen-agers.