Queen's Policy Engagement

Surveying the Papal Visit to Ireland: A Francis Effect?

Following the recent papal visit to Ireland, Dr Gladys Ganiel carried out a survey in conjunction with market research agency Amárach to gauge the views of those who had, and hadn't, attended events as part of Pope Francis's first visit to Ireland.

Surveying the Papal Visit to Ireland: A Francis Effect?

Pope Francis is a remarkably popular religious leader. A term has even been coined to describe his presumed positive impact on Catholicism worldwide: “The Francis Effect”. On 25 and 26 August 2018, Francis visited Ireland as part of the World Meeting of Families. But as his visit approached, the national conversation became dominated by the issue of abuse – so much so that the visit seemed to have become an unofficial referendum on the papal response to abuse.

The following report outlines the results of a survey conducted a few weeks after the papal visit which revealed that only 30 percent of Irish people thought Francis had done enough to address abuse during his visit.

The survey was designed by Dr Gladys Ganiel from the Senator George J. Mitchell Institute for Global Peace, Security and Justice at Queen’s University Belfast.

To read more and to view the survey report please click here. 

 

The featured image in this article is used under a Creative Commons licence.

Dr Gladys Ganiel
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Dr Gladys Ganiel is a Lecturer in the School of Social Sciences, Education and Social Work and a Research Fellow in the Senator George J. Mitchell Institute for Global Peace, Security and Justice. Gladys works across the disciplines of sociology, politics, anthropology and religious studies. She specialises in religion, conflict transformation and reconciliation in Northern Ireland, Zimbabwe and South Africa; the emerging church movement; evangelicalism; and religious change on the island of Ireland.

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