Pope names bioethics advisers in closely watched appointment

VATICAN CITY – Pope Francis has selected the members of his bioethics advisory board, a closely watched appointment because the commission had previously reflected the conservative vision of sexual morality and life issues championed by the past two popes.

Francis kept several previous members and added new members of the Pontifical Academy of Life. But notably absent from the lineup released Tuesday were some of the academy’s more outspoken members, who had led protests when, for example, experts who didn’t support church teaching were invited to speak at a 2012 Vatican infertility conference.

Francis has upheld church opposition to abortion, but he hasn’t emphasized sexual morality as much as his predecessors. He has said that after St. John Paul II and Pope Benedict XVI, Catholics know what the church teaches.