VATICAN CITY – Pope Benedict XVI has appointed the leader of a prominent United States bioethics think tank to the board of the Pontifical Academy for Life, a Vatican statement said June 22.
John Haas, president of the Philadelphia-based National Catholic Bioethics Center, was one of five new members named to sit on the board of the academy that studies and advises the Pope on questions regarding abortion, euthanasia, stem-cell research, health care and other issues.
Dr. Haas, also a professor of moral theology at St. Charles Borromeo Seminary, has served as an ordinary member of the academy since 2006.
The Pontifical Academy for Life was established by Pope John Paul II in 1994. The principal objective of the academy is the study of problems of biomedicine and of law relative to the promotion and defense of life and especially the direct relation that they have with Christian morality and the teachings and directives of the Church's Magisterium.
Dr. Haas said of the appointment, "I am deeply honored and humbled with this appointment from the Holy Father and pray that I, with my colleagues at the National Catholic Bioethics Center, may make some real and lasting contributions to the building up of a culture of life worldwide."
The others named to the board were Bishop Fernando Natalio Comali Garib of Chile; Egyptian professor of bioethics Mounir Abdel Messih Shehata Farag; Italian neurologist and professor Dr. Gian Luigi Gigli; and bioethics professor Monica Lopez Barahona of Spain.
The Pontifical Academy for Life is headed by Italian Archbishop Rino Fisichella.
The academy announced the appointment on June 22, the feast of the English martyrs Sts. John Fisher and Thomas More, who "gave their lives for principles which are very much still actual and which are deeply relevant for the work of the Academy in the defense of human life," it said.
– By CNS and other reports
