Obama is doing very well with Democrats.

[Kurt_and_Hunter]

How do I know?

Because he is running 20-30% better among Dems than the Pope is doing with Catholics.

(The pope now has a 61% approval rating with American Catholics according to a poll reported on the TV machine.)

[Jennicut]

1. Per Gallup

PRINCETON, NJ -- A new low of 40% of Americans view Pope Benedict XVI favorably amid new criticism about the Roman Catholic Church's handling of child sex abuse by priests. Now, nearly as many Americans have an unfavorable view of the pope as have a favorable view.

The current results represent a major shift from two years ago, when the pope's favorable rating jumped to 63% as he was concluding a well-received visit to the United States that included personal meetings between the pope and victims of sex abuse by U.S. priests. The latest allegations of lax handling of abusive priests mostly concern past abuse cases in Europe, but they implicate the pope, who had a central role in the Catholic Church's handling of sex abuse cases prior to his becoming pope.

Pope Benedict's image has deteriorated about equally among Catholics and non-Catholics from its 2008 high -- by 20 and 23 points, respectively. Catholics continue to view him much more favorably than non-Catholics.http://www.gallup.com/poll/127058/Pope-Benedict-Favorable-Rating-Drops.aspx

[Captain Hilts]

3. The NYDaily News had an editorial that Cardinal Rat was not responsible ...

for what happened to the kids in Wisconsin. It's an interesting piece.

http://www.nydailynews.com/opinions/2010/03/31/2010-03-31_fairness_for_the_pope.html

It has become an increasingly prevailing belief that as a cardinal, before he ascended to the papacy, Pope Benedict enabled a pedophile priest to do enormous harm. This is false.

New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd took the accusations against the Pope, whose given name is Joseph Ratzinger, to their most extreme. She wrote:

"Now we learn the sickening news that Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, nicknamed 'God's Rottweiler' when he was the church's enforcer on matters of faith and sin, ignored repeated warnings and looked away in the case of the Rev. Lawrence C. Murphy, a Wisconsin priest who molested as many as 200 deaf boys."

Again, and with certainty: This is false.

...

[Jennicut]

4. This part in that article was interesting:

"For 24 years starting in 1950, Murphy served as a priest at a school for deaf boys in Milwaukee. He was first accused of molesting students in the 1950s, and he was trailed by similar accounts until the church forced him onto "temporary sick leave." His superiors did not report Murphy to the police or take further internal action.

Those crimes, dating back half a century, took place decades before Ratzinger rose to high church positions in Europe. He could not have ignored repeated warnings, nor could he have looked away. He not on the scene at all."

Benedict did decide to try and get Murphy to accept a banishment instead of a defrocking if he accepted guilt and apologized for his wrongdoing, but the Cardinal in charge of the case was unaware of this and would have kept the case going regardless.

[Captain Hilts]

2. Catholics often completely disagree with what the pope - any pope - does. nt