Record-low 27 percent of adults give clergy high marks for honesty, ethics
The bad news for pastors and other clergy is that public trust in their honesty and ethical standards is slipping. The good news, however, is that they still rank well ahead of politicians, telemarketers and TV reporters.
A new Gallup survey found that a record-low 27 percent of U.S. adults rate the honesty and ethics of clergy as high or very high; 48 percent rate them as average; and 18 percent as low or very low. A decade ago, 45 percent of Americans rated the honesty and ethics of clergy as high or very high. This figure dropped to 37 percent in 2018 and 32 percent in 2023.
The criteria for clergy are based on numerous factors, according to other Gallup studies and additional polls. These include handling of sex abuse claims within congregations, or pastor involvement in such claims, lack of financial transparency, and failing to have rigorous and independent church accountability structures to handle oversight of church staff, including the pastor.
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Nurses are the most trusted profession, with 75 percent of Americans ranking them high or very high, followed by military veterans (67 percent), medical doctors (57 percent) and pharmacists (53 percent). “Nurses have outpaced all other professions since being added to the list in 1999, with the exception of one year, 2001, after the 9/11 terrorist attacks, when firefighters made their lone appearance,” Gallup’s Megan Brenan wrote.
Pharmacists and clergy members often were the highest-rated professions before 1999. This began to change in the early 2000s, when widespread revelations of sexual abuse within the Catholic Church eroded public trust.
The poll also revealed a partisan divide with Republicans tending to trust professions more than Democrats. A majority of Republicans trust the police at 60 percent vs Democrats at just 25 percent. But a wide gap exists on the media where 43 percent of Democrats trust journalists, while only 10 percent of Republicans do. Both Democrats and Republicans are equally distrustful of building contractors (22 percent) and car salespeople (6 percent).
However, clergy are not alone in seeing public confidence decline. Pharmacists, high school teachers and police officers also fell to record lows in public trust in the latest survey. In fact, Gallup’s long-term tracking shows the average positive rating across 11 core professions has dropped to 29 percent, its lowest ever, after staying near 40 percent in the early 2000s and around 35 percent through most of the 2010s. Members of Congress (7 percent) and telemarketers (5 percent) ranked at the bottom of the list.
–Alan Goforth
