The roots and the future

The Jubilee year of Albania is about to end. On 28 November 100 years will have passed since the fathers of the country proclaimed, with a solemn act, the Country’s independence from the Turkish Empire. Despite the long Ottoman occupation, followed by fascism and communism, Albanians managed to pass down to future generations their deepest identity, language, traditions, and most of all, their faith. The Catholic community of Albania has acted as a vital realm for the preservation and transmission of the noblest values of the Albanian people across the centuries.Ottoman rule and Catholic population in hiding. The Church preserved Albanian language in liturgy and Catechesis, but especially Albanian Catholics, faithful to Rome, despite the many persecutions represented an uninterrupted chain, linking Albania to Christian Europe. This became clear in the act of independence from Ottoman rule. In fact, the deputy prime minister of the first Albanian government was a Catholic priest, the parish priest of Durazzo, dom Nikoll Kacorri. It was hoped that this would end the flight of Catholics from urban centers to the unfriendly mountains of Albania, where despite a long period marked by the absence of priests and religious, Catholic faithful managed to preserve their faith that had been passed down across the generations. A living faith, inscribed within a bitter environment like the mountains of Albania, thrived in pure spirits and limpid minds. The story continues with what can be best described as an Albanian ‘renaissance’, whereby after 1912 Catholics played a primary role. "The Catholic Church – Albanian bishops wrote in their pastoral letter for the centenary of independence – and her institutions gave an important contribution to the Country’s rebirth". The Franciscans and Jesuits’ schools in Shkoder, the Salesian and Stimmatine nuns, served as breeding grounds for youth education and cultural centres. Twentieth-century martyrs. In the Twentieth century the Country underwent further affliction under Fascist rule, followed by Communist occupation. But faith did not die! "Long live Christ! Long live the Pope! Long live Albania!" – were the last words uttered by almost all the martyrs shot by the regime, without a trial or with fabricated charges. Prior to his death, the bishop of Durres, Msgr. Prennushi, sought a new light. He died in a humid prison, because he didn’t want to separate the Church in Albania from Rome. He died as a martyr. Today he is at the top of a list of 40 candidates for canonization. Similar episodes are countless, and it would take whole books to collect them all, but not all the names of the martyrs for faith, their faces and their stories are written in the book of life. I wish to recall April 25 1993, when pope John Paul II visited Albania. His visit and the consecration of the first bishops after the regime was a sign, a great sign, whose significance can be compared to the signs of the Apocalypse. But from being signs of desperation and terror these signs heralded victory and hope. With the Pope we have crossed the thresholds of hope. A young Church. And today? We have a young Church, that lives the challenge of faith every day. Our communities are full of young people, with many baptisms, marriages, christenings and communions, lived and participated with living faith. Of course, in the contemporariness of faith also our Church is called to undergo a renewal, as the Holy Father reminded us all upon the closure of the last synod. How can a Church like the Church in Albania undergo a renewal? The answer is, that being docile to the voice of the Spirit, that speaks to her as it speaks to all the Churches in the world, the renewal of the Church in Albania takes place through Scripture and tradition. Today, Catholic Albanians, wounded by the plagues of the past, expect pastors to heal their wounds and their sufferings, guiding them along the green fields of a voice that indicates the path of life. So, now as then Catholics can be the light of the world and the salt of the earth for our nation, since they are the soul, the breath, the yeast for a society that goes towards a rampant consumerism, but most of all, it sadly proceeds towards the loss of hope. A medium with Europe. In the coming days Albania will turn one hundred. It’s a good birthday. We hope soon to be part of the larger European family. Catholics are and must be the medium that binds Albania to Europe, without forgetting its founding roots. In their letter, the bishops are confident that the challenge of the foreseeable future for Albania is European integration, which "long before being a geographical or political reality is a spiritual reality, which in Christianity finds one of its most powerful roots. There is no one like Catholics that can and should ensure that this integration is not just a matter of arid bureaucracy, but rather a deeply spiritual event. And perhaps this could be the gift that Catholics could bestow upon their homeland in this first centenary.