Chilling details of church attack as hostage speaks

More horrifying details emerged Wednesday about an attack on a French village church even as the country’s main religious leaders sent a message of unity and solidarity after meeting with President Francois Hollande in Paris.

Two attackers took five hostages Tuesday at the church in Saint-Etienne-du-Rouvray in northwest France and slit the throat of the elderly priest saying morning Mass. A nun at the Mass slipped out to raise the alarm and both attackers, one of them a local man, were then killed by police outside the church.

One of the hostages at the church, an 86-year-old woman, said Wednesday that the attackers had handed her husband, Guy, a cellphone and demanded that he take photos or video of the priest — 85-year-old Rev. Jacques Hamel — after he was slain. Her husband was then slashed in four places by the attackers and is now hospitalized with serious injuries.