The decision of Pope Francis to appoint an American Jesuit to spearhead the Church’s prosecution of clerical sex abuse cases is very likely also a shot across the bows of the Society of Jesus itself. It is an excellent way to buttress forces of renewal within the Jesuits by utilizing one of their number in what we may describe, with extreme understatement, as an internally sensitive role.

The Society of Jesus is, unfortunately, known for defending homosexuality, including the admission of gay men to the priesthood, despite the Church’s 2005 ban on this practice (see the instruction from the Congregation for Catholic Education, On Priesthood and Those with Homosexual Tendencies). The anecdotal evidence is overwhelming for a lavender mafia in Jesuit seminaries, and a search of our news archives will bring up numerous reports of Jesuit universities working very hard to make their campuses gay-friendly.

The Jesuit magazine America has led the fight against barring seminarians with marked homosexual tendencies from ordination. In 2002, America attempted to forestall any such restrictions by, among other things, making the absurd claim that the sexual abuse crisis was unrelated to homosexuality. Five years after the ban, America published a protracted argument by a Jesuit priest that for a Church which relies heavily on gay priests, it shows “cognitive dissonance” to attempt to keep more such men from being ordained.

This problem is so obvious that every Catholic observer knows that both active homosexuality and the not-so-subtle defense of active homosexuality are significant characteristics of the Society of Jesus in our time.

Given all this, it is impossible to pretend that it was not a calculated move for the Pope to select Robert Geisinger, SJ for the Church’s top role in combatting clerical sex abuse. It seems likely that he wants to promote a member of the Order who is willing to do this as both a rebuke and an example to other Jesuits. For those in denial, this may not be enough. Nonetheless, allowing for a Church that moves very slowly, we may consider this to be some very deliberate writing on the wall.