Twenty-seven years ago this week — on May 21, 1996 — seven Trappist monks were martyred in Algeria, after spending two months in the captivity of the terrorist Armed Islamic Group. The kidnappers had come to the Abbey of Our Lady of Atlas on March 27 of that year, kidnapping the monks in the middle of the night. The captors demanded the release of Abdelhak Layada, one of their group’s leaders, who was in prison and awaiting the execution of a death sentence.