Public trust in clergy has fallen substantially over the past 30 years, while trust in other professions has risen, according to a new poll.
An Ipsos Mori survey of 998 British adults found that 65 per cent said they trusted priests and clergy to tell the truth – down 20 per cent from 1983, and down four per cent since last year.
Bobby Duffy, director of the Social Research Institute at Ipsos Mori, said the clergy had shown the most notable decline: they were “the most trusted profession when we started the series in 1983 and have fallen behind seven other groups, including scientists and, for the first time in this latest survey, the ordinary man or woman in the street.”
The figures mean that clergy are the 10th most trusted profession in Britain, ranking below television newsreaders, weather forecasters, nurses and doctors.
Despite the drop, more people said they trusted clergy than not. Thirty per cent said they did not trust members of the clergy to tell the truth.
Among all demographic groups, clergy retained a higher level of trust than distrust, achieving high ratings among the over-65s (73 per cent), people in the highest social grades (75 per cent), people with degrees (69 per cent) and people in rural areas (70 per cent).
Young people born in 1996 or later were also more likely to trust the clergy than those born between 1980 and 1995.
Priests also ranked above politicians, who scored 17 per cent, and journalists, who were on 27 per cent.
Business leaders scored 36 per cent. At the other end of the scale, 85 per cent trusted professors and 83 per cent trusted scientists. The police were on 74 per cent.
Fr Alexander Lucie-Smith, writing at CatholicHerald.co.uk, said that, along with the sexual abuse scandal, social change may account for some of the fall in clergy status, as they were “no longer the only highly educated men in their communities”.
He also noted that Britain was “historically an anti-clerical country”, adding: “The bitter dregs of the Reformation live on in [people’s] residual dislikes.”
Ancient Bible to return to Britain
An 8th-century Bible will return to Britain for the first time in 1,300 years.
Codex Amiatinus, the earliest complete Latin Bible, will be displayed at the British Library as part of its Anglo-Saxon Kingdoms exhibition. The Bible, made in Northumbria, was taken by Abbot Ceolfrith to Italy as a gift for the pope. The abbot died on the way and the Bible ended up at the Laurentian Library in Florence.
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