WATCH: Pope Leo’s former classmate denounces genetically manipulated COVID shots as ‘new sin’

(LifeSiteNews) —  Professor William A. Thomas, a theologian and Mariologist who is a former classmate of Pope Leo XIV, told LifeSiteNews editor-in-chief John-Henry Westen in a recent interview that the creation of genetically manipulated “vaccines” such as the COVID shots, which Pope Francis strongly endorsed, would be considered one of the “new sins” identified during Pope Benedict XVI’s pontificate.

Thomas, a member of the Pontifical Marian Academy and director of the St. John Paul II Institute of Marian Studies, during a January 6 episode of The John Henry Westen Show, while discussing the disastrous pontificate of Pope Francis, emphasized that the late Argentine pontiff had not only encouraged the faithful to take the experimental COVID shot but also punished bishops who wanted to allow their flock to choose whether they wished to receive the jab.

The professor noted his belief that these experimental shots would be considered “genetic manipulation,” one of the so-called “new sins” for the modern age that Pope Benedict’s Vatican had described in 2008.

“There are many bishops who lost their see … I remember one bishop in Puerto Rico, he said that ‘(i)t’s entirely up to you to take this COVID vaccine (or not)’ … And he was removed,” Thomas told Westen during the episode.

Thomas was referring to Bishop Daniel Fernández Torres, who in 2022 was abruptly removed from the Diocese of Arecibo, Puerto Rico, after supporting conscience objections to the COVID shots and authorizing priests in his diocese to sign religious exemption requests. Torres had also refused to sign a letter issued by Puerto Rico’s six other bishops announcing that the faithful would be segregated at Holy Mass based on COVID vaccination status.

Thomas noted that many Swiss guards left their positions rather than take the shot and emphasized that this was the right decision because the creation of this “vaccine” would have been considered a “new sin.”

“This was the level of dictatorship that we had here in Rome. Many of the Swiss guards left rather than take the vaccine,” Thomas said. “And quite rightly so, because in 2008, Pope Benedict listed ‘seven new sins.’ One of those had to do with genetic modification and genetic engineering of the human person, the injection of experimental drugs (into) the human person.”

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The “seven new sins” Thomas mentions here refer to the “new sins” listed by Archbishop Gianfranco Girotti, then the regent of the Apostolic Penitentiary at the Vatican, that had become prevalent in modern times, during a 2008 interview with L’Osservatore Romano, including experimentation and genetic manipulation.

At the time, the mainstream media falsely suggested Pope Benedict had changed the traditional “seven deadly sins.” However, Girotti was speaking only about grave sins the faithful need to be mindful of in our modern age.

“(W)e cannot fail to denounce certain violations of fundamental human rights through experimentation and genetic manipulation whose outcome it is difficult to foresee and to control,” Girotti said during the interview.

As extensively reported by LifeSiteNews, several scientists, including Dr. Kevin McKernan, have discovered that the so-called COVID “vaccine” contains plasmid DNA contamination that can alter the human genome, increasing the risk of cell damage or cancer.

Thomas further stressed the harmful effects of the COVID jab and the corruption of big pharma and intergovernmental organizations such as the World Health Organization (WHO) and the United Nations (UN).

“And we find that (regarding) this (COVID) vaccine … nobody knew the effect of the ‘sudden death syndrome’ that is prevalent around the world, the long COVID, the sicknesses that people have endured from that,” he said.

READ: Former Pfizer vice president: COVID shots were ‘designed to cause injury,’ reduce fertility

The professor continued, “And these drug companies, big pharma … have made billions upon billions upon billions, and at the same time, through their lawyers, have gained immunity from prosecution from every government through the World Health (Organization) and through the United Nations, both of which … have become totally corrupted.”

Since the COVID shot was rushed into circulation, several prominent Catholic clerics and thinkers have denounced it, both for the health risks Thomas noted and due to the fact that they are abortion tainted.

In December 2021, Bishops Marian Eleganti, Rene Henry Gracida, Athanasius Schneider, and Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò, along with 10 priests and other scholars, including Dr. Peter Kwasniewski, signed the four-page “Bethlehem Declaration” opposing the taking of the “morally illicit” shots.

Deacon Nick Donnelly, another signer of the document, told LifeSite at the time that the petition’s name was inspired by the massacre of the Holy Innocents by Herod.

“Bethlehem is … associated with the massacre of the Holy Innocents by King Herod,” he said. “This petition gives us the opportunity to protest on behalf of these silenced victims of the pharmaceutical industry.”