Murder and Redemption at a Benedictine Abbey

On the morning of June 10th, 2002, the tranquility of Conception Abbey in Missouri was violently shattered when an emotionally troubled man named Robert Lloyd Jeffress quietly walked in and shot four Benedictine monks, killing two and injuring two more, before turning his weapon upon himself. No motive was ever given for this senseless act. Paul Johnson was a professor at the abbey seminary who had lost his faith in the wake of his younger brother's sudden death in 2001. In Murder and Redemption at a Benedictine Abbey he describes how the Benedictine faith community responded to the horrible tragedy, how it affected his own spiritual journey, and how healing and faith were ultimately restored, both in the larger community to which he belonged, and in his own heart.