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Scientist Defends Persecuted Mother General
News: World News
Leftist Catholic and secular media join bishop in targeting unjabbed nun
LONDON (ChurchMilitant.com) - A respected scientist is defending one of Britain's most senior nuns over her conscientious objection to the COVID-19 vaccine against a coordinated "snitch and smear" campaign by the Church's hierarchy and left-wing media.
In a letter released to Church Militant, clinical scientist Dr. Livia Tossici-Bolt slammed a Times hit piece by left-wing Catholic journalist Catherine Pepinster and co-author David Collins, against Mother General Marilla of London's historic Tyburn Convent.
Dr. Tossici-Bolt, a scientist who worked until January in the department of medical physics at the University Hospital Southampton, and an author of several papers in peer-reviewed scientific journals, blasted Pepinster and Collins for defaming Mother Marilla as "a vowed anti-vaxxer."
Sowing Discord
"The saddest aspect of the article is the journalists' attempt ... to bring discord within a beautiful and holy congregation, with the insinuation that sisters may have reported their mother general behind her back," the scientist laments.
John Sherrington, auxiliary bishop of Westminster, reported Mother General Marilla to the Vatican after she refused to capitulate to his letters pressuring her to change her views on the vaccine, Church Militant reported last Tuesday.
Westminster archdiocese told Church Militant that it was following canonical procedure in reporting Mother Marilla to the Congregation for Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life in Rome following complaints against her.
Without giving evidence for its claims, The Times reported that some of the complaints against Mother Marilla were made by her nuns, who felt "under pressure not to have the vaccine." However, Westminster archdiocese clarified that the allegations were made by outsiders — and not by nuns within the community.
Freedom to Choose
The mother general of the Benedictine Adorers of the Sacred Heart of Jesus of Montmartre told Church Militant her sisters "have the complete freedom of choice of whether they wish to take the anti-COVID injections or not."
"What upsets me more than being accused of bullying is the perception that our sisters are a bunch of cowardly, mindless ninnies who cannot think for themselves nor form their own opinions," Mother Marilla emphasized.
Mother Marilla said The Times had quoted her private and confidential letter to Bp. Sherrington — even though she had "not given any permission whatsoever for it to be quoted to anybody, whatsoever" and "none of the sisters have a copy of this letter."
"Sowing discord in a good field is the work of the enemy (Matthew 13:24–30)," Dr. Tossici-Bolt noted, pointing out that Pepinster had recycled her smears in The Tablet, Britain's leftist Catholic publication, even after Mother Marilla rigorously refuted the journalists' false claims in a robust response published in various Catholic media, including Church Militant.
Pepinster claimed that Mother Marilla and her nuns participated in a lockdown protest in June 2021 and were filmed warning against the vaccines, even though the sisters are part of "an enclosed Benedictine order."
Catholics Bearing False Witness
"It is very upsetting to learn that this defamatory campaign is coming from journalists, supposedly experts in Catholic matters, who have failed to educate themselves about the basics of the Benedictine rule of monastic life," Dr. Tossici-Bolt observed.
"Their petty reporting of a broken vow of silence, which is not taken by this Benedictine order, says it all — little they know that the voice of prayer cannot be silenced," she stressed. "The articles did not simply attack Mother General Marilla, but the whole monastic community she leads."
The scientist, a faithful Catholic, noted that the "sensationalistic" and "inaccurate" reporting by the mainstream media had failed to tell the truth on the COVID-19 vaccines, which have only been granted an "emergency-use authorization" because they are still in phase-III trials and, hence, "medium- and long-term safety data are simply not available."
Lethal Vaccines
"The bulk of evidence of published studies on vaccine injuries is immense. Some of the injuries are fatal, some life threatening, some leading to permanent disabilities, some with unquantifiable consequences as completely new," Dr. Tossici-Bolt wrote.
The scientist explained:
I will only select for your attention two main types of injuries, which have already captured the attention of the public. The first concerns the vaccine-induced immune thrombotic thrombocytopenia, the new medical term coined in May 2021 to describe a newly emerged syndrome related to the vaccines — of which cerebral venous thrombosis (blood clots in the brain venous sinuses) is the most common manifestation.
The second, and by far the most common, is myocarditis and pericarditis, that is, inflammation of the heart and of the sac-like tissue surrounding it. Prevalent in healthy active adults and in adolescents and children, the risk is higher in boys and increases with the second dose. Worryingly, the damage appears to persist months after the event, with unknown prognostic message.
Dr. Tossici-Bolt also revealed that the vaccine spike protein had been "immune-histologically detected" for the first time this month, which, she says, is "confirming the suspicion that this protein, formed in the body because of the vaccination, is responsible for the inflammations and lesions of vessels observed in pathology specimens."
The scientist has written to The Times to refute Pepinster and Collins' story. British health professionals like midwife Lisa Nicholls, pharmacist Linda Khadhouri and heart-failure nurse Lisa Jukes, and adult nurse Catherine Collins are backing Dr. Tossici-Bolt's defense of Mother Marilla as co-signatories.
Sources close to Tyburn Convent told Church Militant that several Catholics have written in protest against the "snitch and smear" campaign directed against the faithful nun.
Pepinster is a former editor of The Tablet, has been executive editor of Independent on Sunday and a regular contributor to The Guardian and Radio 4. All the above media outlets are left-leaning and support abortion, homosexuality and transgenderism.
"It's not unusual to be a liberal and a Catholic," she said in an earlier interview, adding, "look at Cherie Blair or Helena Kennedy. It's not weird." Ironically, the journalist accused conservative Catholic columnist Damian Thompson of "bullying" her in his blog criticizing her heterodox position on Catholic moral teaching.
