When Pope Francis touches down in Asia next week, home of half the world and a destination his predecessor Pope Benedict XVI signally failed to visit, he will land in an unusual place, a choice so unexpected as to be inspired, at least with a little bit of the new papal way of looking at things.

He will not follow in the footsteps of the Jesuit Matteo Ricci, who brought modern mathematics and cartography to China, today the world's largest country and booming potential megapower, which has more than 100 million suffering Christians, 12 to 15 million of them Catholic. He has not chosen India, where the other sainted Jesuit, Francis Xavier, lies buried after a life in the Asian mission fields and where there are 17 million Catholics. He will not go to Japan, where Xavier and other missionaries had success until the shoguns cracked down.

He has decided to bypass the Philippines, the only "Catholic" country in Asia, where there are 78 million Catholics among 100 million Filipinos. In 1995, 7 million people attended Pope John Paul II's closing World Youth Day mass in Manila, a world record for a religious event.