0:11 AM-24 Sep. 2015
It was by all accounts a beautiful day in Washington, and Pope Francis's 11,000-person welcome at the White House and subsequent popemobile tour went off without a hitch. He kissed babies and posed for selfies as thousands cheered him on, and millions watched on TV. Two days into the pope's five-day tour of the United States, the whole country (minus a few pesky protesters) seemed to be enamored.
Pope Francis offers his kiss to a girl on his parade route in DC Wednesday. (EPA/ALEX BRANDON / POOL)
But ...
Allow us to step back and be a little realistic here. There's little reason to expect any major political or policy impact from His Holiness's visit. That's bad news if you're President Obama and are hoping the pope's increasingly urgent message of combating climate change will resonate with Americans and -- perhaps more importantly -- with a largely skeptical Republican-led Congress (which the pope plans to address Thursday).
Consider this: Pope Francis is hugely popular among Catholics -- and even slightly more so among conservatives than liberals.
(Philip Bump / The Washington Post)
But he's not as popular among evangelicals -- perhaps for some obvious reasons -- and this is the group that is most likely to doubt climate change or that something needs to be done about it.
(Philip Bump / The Washington Post)
That's a lot of minds he could have trouble swaying this week. And even among Catholics, the pope's call to action on climate change could be a hard sell. Polling from Bloomberg suggests that two-thirds of Americans believe in climate change, but just one-third think the pope should chastise those who deny its existence.
(Philip Bump / The Washington Post)
http://link.washingtonpost.com/view/555b4b4f4e8bbf53648b456a33huz.go5/298ad42b
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