Natural law as practiced at the CDF concerns itself with Platonic idealism, where celibacy and chastity are the ideals, often through the filter of papal infallibility rather than reason and with an unspoken asexual bias.  Before LGBT rights, being asexual was considered an attraction disorder, except in the Church, where it gets you a pointy hat and shepherds crook.  I suspect there was no percentage in fighting over how natural law is best used, i.e., authoritatively v. by reason and evidence, so Francis ignored its conclusions. Professor Imperatori-Lee highlights the romanticism, or clerical idealism, often brought to this topic. Meghan Clark also notes this.

Eight women is progress over none, but not nearly enough in a conference about male and female relationships, regardless of how talented the women were. Meaghan Clark is right to cite Francis' implicit change of Pius XI Ozzie and Harriett view of women in marriage and even more so the USCCB allergy to lesbians and trans women.