RANKING

Gallup just released a new survey indicating a record-low honesty and ethics ranking of clergy in the eyes of the general public. It showed that at the end of 2009, only half of Americans considered ministers and priests to have very high or high levels of honesty and ethics. That was a 6% drop from 2008, the highest decline of any of the other 21 measured professions.

Around 3 in 5 Americans had a highly favorable opinion of ministers throughout the 1980s, reaching its peak in 1985 at 67%. For much of the past two decades, the rating of clergy has been in the mid- to high-50s, although it spiked to 64% as recently as 2001 (the year of 9/11).

Gallup was mystified as to why clergy ratings took such a tumble last year, lower even than the televangelist scandals of two decades ago - lower even than the Catholic priest sex abuse revelations of the early 2000s. The drop was across the board, too, including Protestant, Evangelical and Catholic churchgoers as well as non-attendees.

The new ranking put trust in clergy honesty and ethics at 55%. Even among those who attend church nearly every week, the ranking was 63% for clergy.

Clergy had plenty of company in the dropped rankings: In the wake of the outrage over Wall Street misdeeds, bankers (19%) and stockbrokers (9%) unsurprisingly dropped to record lows last year. Also in 2009, lawyers (13%), business execs (12%) and members of Congress (9%) received low rankings.

The only workers to receive gains in honesty and ethics were police officers (63%), pharmicists (66%) medical doctors (65%) and nurses (83%).

Despite the decline, ratings of clergy still remained relatively high, coming in 7th out of 23 professions listed.

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