The biggest issue facing Roman Catholicism’s new Pope Francis is not the clerical sex-abuse scandal, an ungovernable Vatican bureaucracy or internal divisions.

The 266th pope’s biggest challenge will be to find a way to revive Catholicism in a time of growing secularism as well as competition from aggressive non-Catholic churches.

The Catholic Church is experiencing dwindling numbers, including in parts of the world where Christianity had been strong for centuries. Even in Catholic strongholds such as Brazil, the number of Catholics has dropped from 74 percent of the population in 2000 to 65 percent today.

Meanwhile, in Butler, Mass attendance is noticeably down in some churches when compared with what it was in decades past — with attendance in some non-Catholic congregations way up.

Perhaps part of the reason is because those non-Catholic congregations are being viewed as having more relevance to people’s lives in the 21st century than the Catholic Church.

The Catholic Church boasts 1.2 billion members, but it is not without the need to reassess its direction and its approach to preaching and teaching — and being more a part of people’s daily lives.

The new pope considers social outreach, rather than doctrinal battles, to be the essential business of the church. If he pushes that during his pontificate, perhaps Pope Francis will inspire more people than his immediate predecessors to either return to the faith or to embrace it for the first time.

But the way Francis deals with the clerical sex-abuse scandal will nonetheless weigh heavily on his papal legacy. Many Catholics raised from childhood with the impression that their priests were without flaw began having doubts about their faith when they learned that some church clergy were guilty of sins much more serious than their own — or were guilty of covering up serious criminal offenses of their brother priests.

The election of Pope Francis himself also is not without resentment among some in Argentina, who regard him as among the church leaders who supported the murderous dictatorship that existed in that country between 1976 and 1983.

Some human rights activists accuse the former Cardinal Jorge Bergoglio, the now-former archbishop of Buenos Aires, of being more concerned about preserving the church’s image than providing evidence for Argentina’s many human rights trials stemming from the years of the military junta during which thousands of people were killed.

But it will be Francis’ humbleness that will be an attraction to many Catholics. The first Jesuit and the first non-European since the Middle Ages to be elected pope chose the name Francis to honor St. Francis of Assisi, the humble friar who dedicated his life to helping the poor.

The new pontiff denied himself the luxuries that previous cardinals in Buenos Aires enjoyed. He lived in a simple apartment, often rode to work on a bus, cooked his own meals and regularly visited slums that surround Argentina’s capital city.

He is a down-to-earth individual.

The new pope’s challenges are daunting, and perhaps they are beyond one man’s ability to put completely to rest. It’s Francis’ challenge to make significant inroads, however.

Francis must quickly show the world that this papacy intends to do what’s necessary to resolve the sex-abuse scandal.

Among some Catholics, that will be a big factor in whether they ever again will have the faith in their church that they once had. For others, his success in cleaning up the stain of that scandal will determine whether they embrace the faith.

With Francis comes a new opportunity for the church. How well he seizes that opportunity will decide whether his papacy is revered or be viewed as something less.