You have to say this about the College of Cardinals that elected the newest pope: They know how to play to the strength of their church.

Cardinal Jorge Bergoglio is now Pope Francis I, chosen in the most secretive balloting process anywhere on Planet Earth. This pick is intriguing in at least one important sense: Pope Francis comes from a part of the world where the church is ascending, not plummeting. Francis is the first Jesuit pope and the first from a continent other than Europe.

He is the son of Italian immigrants who moved to Argentina, where young Jorge was born. Indeed, the church is growing throughout Latin America, unlike in Europe, where church numbers have been falling precipitously for decades.

The 266th pontiff is known as a man of extraordinary humility who rode the bus to work in the Vatican and who routinely visited slums to comfort the afflicted. I don’t think he’ll be riding the bus or touring shanty towns very often in his new role as head of one of the world’s pre-eminent Christian denominations.

The 115 men who chose the pope, though, know the political landscape to be sure. Even though the previous two popes were non-Italians – from Poland and Germany – they represented a region of the world where the church is in decline. By reaching across the ocean to the southern reaches of Latin America, the cardinals have picked a man who symbolizes the strength of the worldwide flock he now will lead.

I am not a Catholic. Thus, I don’t have a direct stake in this monumental decision. I cannot comment intelligently on church theology or where I think it should go under Francis’s leadership.

However, I can – and do – applaud the apparent political wisdom shown in the decision rendered by the College of Cardinals.