Paris, France (WGNO) – New Orleans native Lucinda Laird is the Episcopalian Dean and Rector of the American Cathedral in Paris. In an interview this week via Skype, Laird talked to WGNO’s Susan Roesgen about the terrorist attacks of November 13th.
Laird said that she hadn’t realized there had been a terrorist strike until early in the morning of the 14th, when worried friends back in the States called her to make sure she was okay. Since then, Laird says her congregation, and the entire city of Paris, have been in shock.
The Sunday after the attacks the Cathedral had armed security, looking through parishioners personal belongings as they entered. She also says that sudden loud noises send Parisians running for cover, and she hates to see her beloved “City of Light” on edge.
But she also says that she’s very disturbed to hear that the governors of more than 25 American states are trying to keep out Syrian refugees who are looking for places to resettle. Laird says the move is “not what we are as Americans (or) as Christians.” She says she tells her congregation that the Old Testament should remind them of God’s command to welcome “aliens,” just as the Jews were once “aliens in the land of Egypt.”