Pope Francis' popularity among Americans may be waning, according to a new Gallup poll.

The pontiff's favorability rating in the United States has dropped from 76 percent in early 2014 to 59 percent this month, Gallup reported this week. This 17 percentage-point decline puts his approval rating close to the 58-percent rating he received in April 2013, soon after he became pope.

For the most part, Catholics and political conservatives — two groups that remain most devout to the modern papacy — drove the rating down. Among these groups, 71 percent of Catholics think of Pope Francis favorably, compared to 89 percent last year. Moreover, 72 percent of conservatives approved of the pope last year, whereas only 45 percent approve of him now. [Papal Primer: History's 10 Most Intriguing Popes]

Although the new survey results suggest many Americans are shifting their favor away from the pope, a rising number reported not knowing him well enough to rate him. In fact, one-quarter of Americans today say they have never heard of the pope or have no opinion of him, compared to 16 percent in 2014. This lack of opinion contributes to the overall decline in favorability, according to Gallup representatives.

Too progressive, too quickly?

Pope Francis, who serves as the religious leader for 1.2 billion Catholic people around the world, has focused his papacy on issues that involve protecting the poor, strengthening interfaith religions, respecting gay and lesbian members of the church, and making environmental conservation a priority.

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In this photo taken on Sunday, July 12, 2015, Pope Francis smiles as he meets the media during an ai …

The pope's decline in favorability among conservatives may result from his denouncement of "the idolatry of money" and his support for the science behind human-caused climate change — two beliefs that often conflict with conservative political views.

However, the pope may not be progressive enough for liberals, a group that also reported a drop in favorability by 14 percentage points — from 82 percent in 2014 to 68 percent now. Liberals have taken issue with the pope for not allowing the ordination of women as priests and for continuing to prohibit priests from marrying.

But Pope Francis' favorability among Americans may rise again soon, with his first planned visit to the United States in September. The pope will make stops in New York, Philadelphia and Washington, D.C., and will be the first pontiff to address a joint session of Congress.

Americans can be somewhat fickle in their admiration of the pope, history shows. When Pope John Paul II, who led the Roman Catholic Church from 1978 to 2005, visited the United States in 1993 and 1999, he was rewarded with a boost in popularity. Similarly, when Pope Benedict, who preceded Pope Francis as pontiff from 2005 to 2013, visited the U.S. in 2008, he reached his highest favorability rating among Americans.

The Gallup poll gathered data from telephone surveys conducted from July 8 through July 12, 2015. The poll included 1,009 adults ages 18 and older living in all 50 states and the District of Columbia.

Elizabeth Goldbaum is on Twitter. Follow Live Science @livescience, Facebook &Google+. Original article on Live Science

‘We know that young boys were raped by powerful people causing untold damage and it looks like the only priority for those running the country at the time was to protect the reputation of the Government at all costs.’

Two of the files unearthed by the Cabinet Office were said to have come from the Prime Minister’s office.

One related to the diplomat Sir Peter Hayman and the security risks posed by his ‘unnatural sexual proclivities’.

The other named former Tory minister Sir William van Straubenzee, although it is not clear whether it contained any allegations against him.

Sir William’s sister dismissed any abuse suspicions against him as ‘total balderdash’. Vivien van Straubenzee, 80, told Channel 4 News: ‘He’s been dead for 15 years. I think it’s absolute nonsense. It’s absolute rubbish. The thought of him doing anything like that is just dreadfully crazy.’

The documents relating to Leon Brittan, Peter Morrison, William van Straubenzee and Peter Hayman have been shown to police and will be passed to inquiry into child sex abuse being led by Dame Lowell Goddard.

David Cameron promised there would be no bar to current investigations, adding: ‘The police on their part should then follow the evidence without any fear and without any uncertainty about how high they can go – they can go as high as they like.’

Sue Reid: Mandarin who can't help being economical with truth

Defiant: Lord Armstrong is at the centre of accusations of a major Establishment cover-up

His admission that the Government had been ‘economical with the truth’ during its epic battle to ban the MI5 memoir Spycatcher has gone down as one of the most outrageous euphemisms in recent political history.

So it is perhaps not surprising that Lord Armstrong – who was Margaret Thatcher’s Cabinet Secretary for eight years – is now at the centre of accusations of a major Establishment cover-up of child abuse by leading public figures in the 1970s and 1980s.

It has been revealed that he was urged by MI5 to help hush-up abuse allegations against a senior MP so as to avoid political embarrassment for the Thatcher government.

A document from November 1986 shows that Sir Antony Duff, then director-general of MI5, wrote to Armstrong about inquiries into one MP said to have ‘a penchant for small boys’.

Even today, despite years of official investigations into the claims and a top-level review into the loss of hundreds of Home Office files relating to the original allegations, Armstrong defiantly refuses to identify the suspect politician or even say if he is alive or dead. Can he really still believe that it is acceptable to be ‘economical with the truth’?

His attitude reflects an arrogant mindset that has for too long prevailed in Westminster and Whitehall.

The newly-unearthed files expose how protection of the Establishment took priority over the need to prosecute anyone suspected of paedophilia and over the safety of vulnerable young children.

In a letter to Armstrong about the suspected MP, Sir Antony warned that secrecy must prevail. ‘At the present stage...the risks of political embarrassment to the Government is rather greater than the security danger,’ he wrote.

In other words, if the rumours of a sex-ring were true and children had been abused, the welfare of the child must be subjugated to the national interest.

At the time, in 1986, there was little public discussion about the rumours. Whistleblowers were silenced, files mysteriously vanished and evidence which might have nailed the culprits was ignored.

Some scant information emerged in newspapers and during court trials of members of the Paedophile Information Exchange (PIE) who were campaigning to legalise sex with children.

It wasn’t until DJ Jimmy Savile was finally exposed that historical sexual abuse was taken much more seriously.

In the 1980s, though, a brave Tory MP, Geoffrey Dickens, had done his best to expose the scandal. Convinced there was a conspiracy to cover up widespread paedophilic abuse in political circles and the security services, he leaked to Private Eye magazine the story that senior diplomat and MI6 spy Sir Peter Hayman (also a member of PIE), had escaped prosecution over the discovery of violent pornography found on a London bus.

He also tackled the Attorney General and was told that a packet containing obscene literature and written notes between Hayman and several other persons had been found, but the Director of Public Prosecutions had not pressed charges. It subsequently emerged during a trial against other PIE members that Hayman’s identity was protected by the Crown Prosecution Service and the police.

Dickens also confronted Mrs Thatcher about whether the convicted Soviet agent Geoffrey Prime had been involved in child abuse. She replied: ‘I understand that stories that the police found documents in Prime’s house or garage indicating that he was a member of PIE are without foundation.’

This was untrue, although it is unclear whether her answer was based on a duplicitous briefing from civil servants or security chiefs.

Undaunted, Dickens kept campaigning, although his house was mysteriously burgled, key documents disappeared, he received threatening phone calls and complained he was on a professional killer’s hit-list. The Home Office warned the Press off following his leads. And so everything went quiet. Looking back, of course, it is easy to understand why. National security and the reputation of the government were paramount.

This was still not the end of the Cold War and before the Soviet Union’s collapse. Duff’s revealing letter to Armstrong may have been written amid fears that a suspected high profile politician could be blackmailed by the Soviets into spilling British security secrets.

Only in the last three years has the truth finally emerged about the number of paedophiles in high places. In 2012, Labour MP Tom Watson told the Commons there was ‘clear intelligence suggesting a powerful paedophile network had been linked to Parliament and to No 10.’ A month later, fellow MP Simon Danczuk cited Cyril Smith as a serial abuser of young boys.

As a result of publicity following the Jimmy Savile scandal, men came forward saying they had been abused many years previously by the now dead Liberal MP.

In due course, campaigners and victims emerged with similar stories of a Westminster-linked sex scandal. Scotland Yard then set up an inquiry into Elm Guest House in Barnes, south west London, where it was claimed prominent men, including politicians, judges and public officials, abused young men in the 1970s and 1980s.

It wasn’t until DJ Jimmy Savile was exposed that historical sexual abuse was taken more seriously

By July last year, more than ten men were reported to be on a list of alleged child abusers held by police.

In a separate development, Labour’s Lord Janner was accused of a string of sexual abuse charges dating back to the 1960s.

One of the main questions that is now being asked is how much the Thatcher administration – or, indeed, the Prime Minister herself – knew of the allegations of child abuse and the parallel cover-up.

One of her closest aides, MP Peter Morrison, has been linked with a series of incidents of child abuse in the 70s and 80s. They centred on children’s homes in North Wales and specifically the Bryn Estyn care establishment where it has been claimed that Savile molested boys. Even at the time, concerns were expressed privately about the wisdom of man bedevilled by such deeply unpleasant rumours to be so close to the Prime Minister.

Fellow Thatcher confidant Norman Tebbit has since admitted he heard about the allegations and confronted the MP, who denied everything. Lord Tebbit says he believes a VIP ring of paedophiles operated in Westminster over many years, covered up deliberately by those who felt they should protect the Establishment.

Perhaps, it is no surprise that Lord Armstrong should still refuse to be entirely open about the affair. Just a few months ago, when asked on Radio 4’s Today programme about a secret document that had warned Mrs Thatcher of the allegations of child abuse against Sir Peter Hayman, Armstrong told the BBC: ‘Clearly I was aware of it ...but I was not concerned with the personal aspect of it, whether he should or should not be pursued. That was something for the police to consider. My concern was implications of national security and international relations.’

How piquant that it was the same man, who, in 1987, used the memorable phrase about being ‘economical with the truth’ when he was cross-examined during the Spycatcher trial.

Former MI5 officer Peter Wright was trying to get permission to publish his memoirs against the Thatcher government’s wishes.

During a two-week cross-examination, Armstrong explained why he felt sometimes it was necessary to give a misleading impression.

It seems there were others within the Establishment who used this same tactic when dealing with rumours about a child sex ring operating inside Westminster.

They may have felt they were loyal to the Government, but their actions meant that it has taken 30 long years for the scale of the sex abuse scandal to be uncovered. And even now we may not know the full truth of it.