By P. Benedict Kiely
When I was a young man of about fourteen or fifteen, I used to enjoy, late at night in my room in England, gently turning the dial of the shortwave section of my radio until I tuned into the faint and crackling broadcasts of Radio Tirana.
It was the end of the 1970s and Albania was a mysterious place, almost impossible to visit. The broadcasts, with a signal that came and went, spoke of the decadent Western capitalism and the glorious achievements of Enver Hoxha’s communist regime. Unfortunately, at that early stage of my life, I did not realize that the humor of listening to this absurd propaganda concealed the unspeakable horrors suffered by ordinary Albanians, especially the persecuted Church.
Hoxha, the “Supreme Comrade, Sole Force and Great Master,” after taking power in 1945 by winning the “elections” with an implausible 93 percent of the vote—his Communist Front was the only party authorized to run—immediately began persecuting all religions, but attacked the Catholic Church with particular ferocity, claiming it was a foreign and disloyal entity.
Priests, bishops and many laypeople were arrested, sent to labor camps and prisons, tortured and denounced. At one point, it is estimated that one-third of Albanians were spied on by their own government, making Albania the world’s first true total surveillance state.
Christ’s warning that children would hand over their parents and parents their children was fulfilled; possession of Bibles or religious images, if seen in the house, led to arrest and imprisonment.
This persecution intensified when, in 1967, Hoxha declared Albania “the world’s first atheist state.” All religious buildings, of every creed, including all churches, were destroyed or repurposed for secular uses. The cathedral of Shkodër, the most Catholic area of Albania, for example, was converted into a gymnasium.
The tortures and experiences of clergy and laity during this period, until the regime finally fell in 1991, defy all credibility. Saint John Paul II said that “history had never before seen what happened in Albania.” Reading the chapter on Albania in Robert Royal’s magisterial book The Catholic Martyrs of the Twentieth Century, one is left stunned by the depravity and demonic cruelty inflicted on Albanian believers.
Prisoners were tied into sacks with wild animals; one of the beatified Albanian martyrs, a religious novice, Blessed Maria Tuci, was tortured to death in this way. Along with other equally aberrant tortures and death sentences, prisoners of conscience were forced to work in mines and under other extreme conditions, with thousands dying of starvation, exhaustion and disease.
Yet, despite this intense persecution, as communism collapsed between late 1990 and 1991, the underground Church emerged. Secret seminaries had been operating, and some of the priests who had been held captive appeared in public.
One of them was Father Ernest Simoni. Ordained in 1956, he had been sentenced to death in 1963 for celebrating a requiem Mass for President John F. Kennedy. When word reached Hoxha that Father Simoni spoke only words of forgiveness, somehow divine grace touched the dictator’s heart and his sentence was commuted to life imprisonment.
Upon his arrest, he had told his captors that “we must forgive, love and pray for our enemies.” After suffering for nearly thirty years in prisons and copper mines, he ended his sentence working for ten years in a sewage canal.
Saint John Paul II visited Albania for a day in 1993 and ordained four bishops; shortly afterward, men who had been secret seminarians were ordained. During his pastoral visit to Albania in 2016, Pope Francis wept upon hearing Simoni, then 84, describe his suffering with detachment and humility. To honor all the martyrs, including the white martyrs like Fr. Simoni, Pope Francis created Ernest Simoni a cardinal in 2016.
A martyr, as we know, is a witness, if necessary even unto death. A witness to the faith speaks of the truth, of eternal truth, and that testimony is, to a great extent, for others: to inspire, strengthen and encourage the rest of us. After Father Simoni spoke, the Pope said that “listening to a martyr speak of his own martyrdom is truly powerful.”
Last week in Rome, I met Cardinal Simoni, something I had long wished and hoped for. He was celebrating the 70th anniversary of his priesthood and is now 97 years old. Chesterton wrote that “the true saint, or the true hero, differs from humanity only in being, so to speak, more ‘human than humanity.’”
When a journalist friend who was with me asked how he had survived the persecution, Cardinal Simoni spoke only of eternity. His testimony, and the testimony of the Church in Albania, is of a truth that many in the Church have forgotten. The intense focus of many on legitimate but transitory concerns denies the profound truth of Cardinal Simoni’s suffering and witness: we were created for eternal life, and the sufferings of this life, if borne for Christ, prepare us for our heavenly home.
The Cardinal now speaks very little of his suffering; his words are of love and forgiveness. This is another sign for an unforgiving world. In the mystery of the divine plan, before the Fall there would have been no need not only for forgiveness, but also for mercy. The “happy fault” of Adam, as the Exsultet sings, allows the inspiring testimony “more human than humanity” in the person of a man transformed by the healing grace of the Crucified Christ.
Surrounded, as Paul tells us, not only by the heavenly “cloud of witnesses” (Hebrews 12:1), but also by the white martyrs like Cardinal Ernest Simoni, there remains one final lesson given by Saint John Paul II in 1993. As European governments and institutions, particularly the EU, become increasingly hostile to the practice of the faith, Saint John Paul II said that Europe “should not forget what happened in Albania,” where the persecution was the work of governments, not of ancient pagan empires.
About the author
Fr. Benedict Kiely is a priest of the Ordinariate of Our Lady of Walsingham. He is the founder of Nasarean.org, an organization that assists persecuted Christians.