“I am Hugh Ward. It’s less than a year since I sat at the bedside of my dying friend, Tom Maguire. Events then shunted my life from the American corporate world to the very different world of Tully Shee and the Gray Monks. In these months, old friendships were renewed and new friends were made. Some of those friends had connections to a covert group within Irish military intelligence…

 

“I had known some of [them] for years, and I have known others for less than a year. Our shared purpose was to protect the monastery of the Gray Monks. In a world of increasing consumerism and all its consequences, a simple tolerant life-style like that of these monks was an essential buffer, a curative for the grinding life-style modern commerce had created for us. 

 

“We also looked beyond the monastery and far beyond Ireland. Ireland’s record in sexual abuse could not be ignored and had to be tackled town by town and parish by parish. Could we do that? Beyond Ireland, Tarira Oni was determined to find some way to avenge the robbery, rape, and murder of her family and friends in Africa…”

 

Hugh Ward.

 

 

“We cannot defeat Evil. There is no vaccine for evil. No silver bullet. Knock it down in one place, and it springs up in two others. There are some ways to reduce it and ways to treat it when it appears. Ancient ways. Difficult ways. Soul wearying ways. Evil is from the human heart. Wrong ideas and wrong attitudes lead to evil.”

​

Brother Benedict, a Gray Monk.