Pope Francis left unfinished business after a 12-year papacy. What challenges await the next pope?

VATICAN CITY (AP) — While Pope Franci s accomplished a lot in his 12-year papacy, he left much unfinished business and many challenges for his successor — from the Vatican's disastrous finances to the wars raging on multiple continents and discontent among traditionalists about his crackdown on the old Latin Mass.

When the conclave's cardinals finish casting their ballots under Michelangelo's frescoed ceilings of the Sistine Chapel, the 267th pope will have to decide whether to continue Francis’ policies, tweak them, or abandon them altogether. Will he prioritize migrants, the environment and the social justice policies that Francis championed, or give precedence to other issues?

Among the challenges facing the new pope:

Francis did more to promote women to leadership positions in the Vatican than any pope before him, and his successor will have to decide whether to continue that legacy, accelerate it or back down and change course.

The issue isn't minor. Catholic women do much of the church’s work in schools and hospitals and are usually responsible for passing the faith to the next generation. But they have long complained of second-class status in an institution that reserves the priesthood for men.

Some are voting with their feet.

Nuns are leaving in droves, either through attrition or simply quitting, leading to questions about the future of female religious orders.

The Vatican says the number of nuns globally has been hemorrhaging about 10,000 per year for over a decade, with their numbers at 599,229 at the end of 2022, the last year for which there are statistics. In 2012, there were 702,529 nuns globally.

The new pope will have to address women's expectations for not only a greater say in church governance, but greater recognition.

“We are the great majority of the people of God,” said Maria Lia Zerbino, an Argentine named by Francis to advise the Vatican on bishop nominations, a first for a woman. “It’s a matter of justice. It’s not an achievement of feminism, it’s in the church’s interest.”

Women’s Ordination Conference, which advocates for female priests, goes further. “The exclusion of women from the conclave, and from ordained ministry, is a sin and a scandal,” it said.

Gervase Ndyanabo, a prominent lay leader in Uganda, said there should be more participation of the laity and women in the administration of parishes and decision-making at all levels. Progress, he said, has come “at a snail’s speed.”

An anonymous letter circulated among Vatican officials in 2022, highlighting what it called Francis’ “disastrous” pontificate and what a new pope must do correct the “catastrophe” he had wrought. Its author was Australian Cardinal George Pell, but that fact emerged only after his death in 2023. Once a close adviser to Francis but always conservative, Pell grew increasingly disillusioned with his papacy, signing the letter with the pen name, “Demos” — the common people.

Last year, a screed by another anonymous cardinal circulated, signed by “Demos II.” It resumed where Pell left off, denouncing what it called Francis' “autocratic, at times seemingly vindictive style of governance; a carelessness in matters of law; an intolerance for even respectful disagreement; and – most seriously – a pattern of ambiguity in matters of faith and morals causing confusion among the faithful.”

It blamed polarization in the church on the confusion Francis had sown and urged the next pope to focus on “recovery and reestablishment of truths that have been slowly obscured or lost among many Christians.”

Those letters underscored the age-old divisions between traditionalists and progressives in the Catholic Church that were exacerbated during Francis’ pontificate. He emphasized inclusion and “synodality," or listening to the faithful, and cracked down on traditionalists by restricting their celebration of the old Latin Mass. While the conservatives may not have enough votes to elect one of their own, a new pope will have to try to restore unity.

The polarization is keenly felt in the United States, where anyone using social media can challenge the Vatican or even the local church’s perspective, said professor Steven Millies of Catholic Theological Union in Chicago.

Such forms of communications "can have a narrative of what Catholicism is that doesn’t come from any ordained minister, from any bishop, and can, night after night, the world over, suggest that the pope is wrong,” he said.

While many church leaders would like to think clergy sexual abuse scandals are in the past, survivors and their advocates want the new pope to address it as a top priority.

Francis and Pope Benedict XVI took steps to end decades of abuse and cover-ups, changing church laws to punish abusers and their clerical superiors who hid their wrongdoing.

But a culture of impunity still reigns, and church authorities have barely begun to deal with other forms of spiritual and psychological abuse that have traumatized generations of faithful. Twenty years after the sex abuse scandal first erupted in the U.S., there is still no transparency from the Vatican about the depth of the problem or how cases have been handled.

The new pope must deal with not only the existing caseload but continued outrage from rank-and-file Catholics and ongoing revelations in parts of the world where the scandal hasn’t yet emerged.

Ahead of the conclave, groups of survivors and their advocates held news conferences in Rome to publicize the problem. They created online databases to call out cardinals who botched cases and demanded the Vatican finally adopt a zero-tolerance policy to bar any abuser from priestly ministry.

Peter Isely of the U.S. group SNAP said it was “crazy and bizarre” that the church doesn’t apply the same rigor to abusers that it does to establishing criteria for ordination.

“You can’t be a married man and a priest,” he said. “You can’t be a woman and a priest. … But you can be a child molester and a priest.”

Francis famously said, “Who am I to judge?” when asked in 2013 about a purportedly gay monsignor at the Vatican. Francis sought to assure gay people that God loves them as they are, that “being homosexual is not a crime,” and that everyone is welcome in the church.

His successor must decide whether to follow in that outreach or pull back. There's plenty of support for rolling it back. In 2024, African bishops issued a continent-wide dissent from Francis’ decision allowing priests to bless same-sex couples, and bishops from around the world attending his synod on the church's future backed off language explicitly accepting LGBTQ+ people.

“We want a united Catholic Church, but we must stay with the fundamentals,” said Ndyanabo, the Ugandan lay leader. “The gospel should not change at all because of our own human weakness.”

The Rev. James Martin, who seeks to build bridges with LGBTQ+ Catholics, knows the degree of opposition but remains hopeful.

“The challenge for the new pope is to continue Francis’ legacy of reaching out to a group who has felt excluded from their own church,” Martin said. “Based on the synod, I would say that many cardinals feel that there needs to be welcome of LGBTQ+ people because they know their dioceses. But how far that goes is up in the air.”

Rodney Muhumuza in Kampala, Uganda, and Giovanna Dell’Orto in Vatican City contributed.

Associated Press religion coverage receives support through the AP’s collaboration with The Conversation US, with funding from Lilly Endowment Inc. The AP is solely responsible for this content.

FILE - Same-sex couples take part in a public blessing ceremony in front of the Cologne Cathedral in Cologne, Germany, Sept. 20, 2023. (AP Photo/Martin Meissner, File)

FILE - The faithful and tourists walk along St Peter's square on the sixth day of mourning for late Pope Francis at the Vatican on Thursday, May 1, 2025. (AP Photo/Francisco Seco, File)

FILE - Cardinal Raymond Leo Burke, left, and Cardinal George Pell wait for the arrival of Pope Francis in St. Peter's Basilica at the Vatican, June 29, 2015. (AP Photo/Gregorio Borgia, File)

FILE - Nuns walk along St. Peter's Square during the fourth day of mourning for late Pope Francis at the Vatican, Tuesday, April 29, 2025. (AP Photo/Francisco Seco, File)

FILE - Pope Francis leaves at the end of his weekly general audience in St. Peter's Square, at the Vatican, May 15, 2019. (AP Photo/Andrew Medichini, File)

FILE - Cardinals attend a Mass on the fifth day of mourning for the late Pope Francis in St. Peter's Basilica at the Vatican, Wednesday, April 30, 2025. (AP Photo/Alessandra Tarantino, File)

TRENTON, N.J. (AP) — Richard “Dick” Codey, a former acting governor of New Jersey and the longest serving legislator in the state's history, died Sunday. He was 79.

Codey’s wife, Mary Jo Codey, confirmed her husband’s death to The Associated Press.

“Gov. Richard J. Codey passed away peacefully this morning at home, surrounded by family, after a brief illness,” Codey's family wrote in a Facebook post on Codey's official page.

"Our family has lost a beloved husband, father and grandfather -- and New Jersey lost a remarkable public servant who touched the lives of all who knew him," the family said.

Known for his feisty, regular-guy persona, Codey was a staunch advocate of mental health awareness and care issues. The Democrat also championed legislation to ban smoking from indoor areas and sought more money for stem cell research.

Codey, the son of a northern New Jersey funeral home owner, entered the state Assembly in 1974 and served there until he was elected to the state Senate in 1982. He served as Senate president from 2002 to 2010.

Codey first served as acting governor for a brief time in 2002, after Christine Todd Whitman’s resignation to join President George W. Bush’s administration. He held the post again for 14 months after Gov. Jim McGreevey resigned in 2004.

At that time, New Jersey law mandated that the Senate president assume the governor’s role if a vacancy occurred, and that person would serve until the next election.

Codey routinely drew strong praise from residents in polls, and he gave serious consideration to seeking the Democratic nomination for governor in 2005. But he ultimately chose not to run when party leaders opted to back wealthy Wall Street executive Jon Corzine, who went on to win the office.

Codey would again become acting governor after Corzine was incapacitated in April 2007 due to serious injuries he suffered in a car accident. He held the post for nearly a month before Corzine resumed his duties.

After leaving the governor’s office, Codey returned to the Senate and also published a memoir that detailed his decades of public service, along with stories about his personal and family life.

“He lived his life with humility, compassion and a deep sense of responsibility to others,” his family wrote. “He made friends as easily with Presidents as he did with strangers in all-night diners.”

Codey and his wife often spoke candidly about her past struggles with postpartum depression, and that led to controversy in early 2005, when a talk radio host jokingly criticized Mary Jo and her mental health on the air.

Codey, who was at the radio station for something else, confronted the host and said he told him that he wished he could “take him outside.” But the host claimed Codey actually threatened to “take him out,” which Codey denied.

His wife told The Associated Press that Codey was willing to support her speaking out about postpartum depression, even if it cost him elected office.

“He was a really, really good guy,” Mary Jo Codey said. “He said, ‘If you want to do it, I don’t care if I get elected again.’”

Jack Brook contributed reporting from New Orleans.

FILE - New Jersey State Sen. and former Democratic Gov. Richard Codey is seen before New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy delivers his State of the State address to a joint session of the Legislature at the statehouse, in Trenton, N.J., Tuesday, Jan. 10, 2023. (AP Photo/Matt Rourke, File)