A sixth-century abbot who wrote a practical rule for his community and a twentieth-century thinker who has roamed through literature, cultural anthropology, and religious thought-what would these two men have in common to generate a conversation between them? The religious study Tools for Peace: The Spiritual Craft of St. Benedict and Rene Girard combines their insights on how to understand and overcome violence in the world today.

In his Rule for monks, St. Benedict explored ways that people can live in peace with one another and with God. Rene Girard probed human experience to seek the roots of violence that tears human communities apart and separates people from God. A dialogue between this abbot and this modern thinker across fifteen centuries deepens the insights of both into the causes and cures of human violence and gives us the tools to apply their ideas in our troubled world.

For both St. Benedict and Girard, peace is rooted in God. Anyone who yearns for harmony in the midst of the violence that surrounds us today can learn much from Tools for Peace, essentially joining in a conversation between two people who share a desire for the serenity of God for all times.