To the Editor:
When I sat down in the chapel at New Melleray Abbey in Peosta, Iowa, I felt a tremendous contrast between the peace I experience here in this monastic enclosure and my concerns about the ongoing turmoil in Congress. Even my 11-year-old niece is affected, as she asked my sister, “Mommy, are we safe?” I told my sister Marcie that now, more than ever, we need to pray for our government leaders. Our Church was built on the Rock of Peter — these three-foot-thick walls at the monastery symbolize that truth. This message, from St. Padre Pio, offers the answer. Please take it to heart: “Hope, pray and don’t worry.”
Father Bill Kneemiller
Grand Mound
