Two-fifths of Britons have little or no trust in priests, vicars, and other clergy to tell the truth, a new poll has found.
According to a survey of 1,918 adults by pollster YouGov commissioned by The Sunday Times newspaper between March 27 and 28, forty percent of those polled said they did not trust the clergy to tell the truth.
They also regarded the clergy as the sixth most trusted profession on a list of eighteen occupations, with doctors, teachers and judges being rated as more trustworthy than the clergy.
The poll, which was released on Sunday, also showed that 69 percent of people in Britain thought the Church of England was out of touch.
Moreover, over half (54 percent) of respondents said the mother church of the Anglican Communion does a bad job of providing moral leadership.
The poll findings come amid controversies over the ordination of women bishops and the UK government’s plans to legalize gay marriage by 2015.