Unspeakable Abomination

            On Tuesday, July 26, two Islamic terrorists stormed into a church in the French town of Saint-Etienne-du-Rouvray during the celebration of Mass. They made the 85-year-old priest kneel and, after making a speech in Arabic, cut his throat.

            I take this personally. And perhaps all Americans should.

            Saint-Etienne-du-Rouvray is in Normandy, that part of France where thousands of Americans gave their lives to liberate France from Nazi occupation in 1944. Any American who has ever visited the Allied cemeteries in Normandy has felt the special bond between us and this land made sacred by the blood of our soldiers.

            The French of that region have not forgotten. In 1964, two decades after D-Day, I happened to be having a mid-afternoon beer with an American friend in Amiens, not far from Saint-Etienne-du-Rouvray. The bar was empty, except for three old men sitting at the far end of the room. After eying us for a while, one of the men came over to our table and asked, “Are you American?” When I said yes, the Frenchman held out his hand and said, “I want to thank you for what you did for us.”  I was deeply moved by this unsolicited and heart-felt gratitude.

            Normandy also happens to be the land of my mother’s ancestors who emigrated to Canada in the 17^th century. I share my blood with the people of Normandy.

            Finally, I am a Catholic. The execution of a priest in his sanctuary during the most solemn of Catholic ceremonies is an unspeakable abomination. Worse, this atrocity was committed in the name of another religion, Islam.

            If this does not rouse the people of France--and those Muslims who abhor radical extremism—to excise this growing cancer in their midst, I don’t know what will.

            Whatever they do, I will take it personally.