The magi came from the east to the newborn Jesus, the Epiphany Sunday gospel relates, because they “saw his star at its rising and have come to do him homage.” A generation ago Americans paid homage in very high numbers to the honesty and ethics of members of the clergy, Gallup polls dating back to 1977 indicate. The clerical star has fallen in recent years, however, and this year for the first time since Gallup began asking the question, fewer than half of those polled said clergy have “high” or “very high” moral standards.

Overall, 47 percent of respondents to the survey gave clergy “high” or “very high” ratings, a sharp drop in confidence from the 67 percent of Americans who viewed them this way in 1985.

This year clergy took a back seat to nurses, pharmacists, schoolteachers, medical doctors, members of the military, and police officers. The overall trend for clergy has sloped downward since 2001, with Gallup pollsters attributing the slide to scandals involving the sexual abuse of minors.

“The Catholic priest abuse stories from the early 2000s helped lead to a sharp drop in Americans’ ratings of clergy, a decline from which the profession has yet to fully recover,” Gallup Managing Editor Art Swift wrote about the poll.

Rev. J. C. Austin of Auburn Theological Seminary, however, suggests another reason that the clergy’s reputation has suffered. Too often, he said, divisive clergy overshadow those working toward the common good, especially when it comes to “hot button” issues like gay marriage and abortion.

Nurses are the most trusted profession and have been nearly every year since Gallup added them to the poll in 1999, with 82 percent of people saying they rank highly or very highly on the ethical spectrum. Clergy came in seventh of the 22 professions ranked this year.

Homily hint: No one has to tell a preacher that being a member of the clergy is a tough job. Talking with the faith community about what it feels like to be on the other side of the pulpit would make for an engaging sermon and might go a long way toward building a supportive familial bond in the faith community.

Source: An article by Lauren Markoe for Religion News Service