Cardinal Ernest Simoni celebrated Mass Sept. 12 at St. John the Beloved Church in McLean. To someone unfamiliar with his past, the scene might have appeared to be simply a visiting cardinal leading a commemorative liturgy. It was far more than that.
Just weeks shy of his 98th birthday, Cardinal Simoni remains a living witness to one of the most severe campaigns of religious persecution in modern Europe. More than six decades ago, Albania’s communist regime sentenced him to death. Among the accusations against him was that he had offered Mass for President John F. Kennedy following the assassination of the United States’ first Catholic president.
On a Saturday in McLean, Cardinal Simoni stood at an American altar, freely celebrating the faith Albania’s communist dictatorship had tried to eradicate. The Mass, offered in thanksgiving for the 10th anniversary of St. Teresa of Kolkata’s canonization and the 250th anniversary of the U.S., brought together the Albanian Catholic community to reflect on faith, sacrifice and religious freedom.
News of Kennedy’s assassination in Dallas, Nov. 22, 1963, reached then-Father Simoni thousands of miles away in communist Albania. Catholic priests were encouraged to offer Masses for the repose of Kennedy’s soul, yet doing so was later one of three accusations against him at trial, following his arrest on Christmas Eve 1963. The others were his fealty to Christ even unto death and his ministry as an exorcist, which he says he has carried out for nearly 70 years.
He was held in solitary confinement, interrogated and tortured, before being sentenced to death by hanging. His sentence was later commuted to 25 years hard labor, and he ultimately spent 18 years in prison. After his release in 1981, authorities still viewed him suspiciously, yet he continued his priestly ministry in secret until Albania’s communist regime collapsed in 1990.
The regime’s persecution extended beyond Cardinal Simoni and the Catholic Church. Enver Hoxha’s dictatorship targeted Muslims, Orthodox Christians and Catholics alike. In 1967, the government banned all religious practice, seized houses of worship and sought to make Albania the world’s first officially atheist state. Clergy were imprisoned, tortured and executed, while religious communities were driven underground.
The state could imprison Cardinal Simoni, but it could not stop him from being a priest. Inside the camps, he secretly celebrated Mass from memory, heard confessions and gave Communion to fellow prisoners, knowing discovery could cost him his life. “I risked my life each time,” Simoni recalled this summer when he returned to the former prison camp at Spaç to celebrate Mass for those who suffered and died there. He said guards would have hanged him had they discovered the secret liturgies. His response to his persecutors is as striking as his survival. In a July interview with the National Catholic Register, Cardinal Simoni said he did not hate them and even celebrated Mass for their salvation. His message was simple: “To forgive and pray. Love your enemies.”
Saturday’s Mass was more than a remembrance of suffering. Cardinal Simoni’s witness is not one of bitterness, but of faith that outlasted persecution and forgiveness that denied his persecutors the final word.
Pope Francis met Cardinal Simoni during his 2014 visit to Tirana, Albania’s capital. As the priest recounted his experiences of persecution, Pope Francis listened with emotion and embraced him. The pope later told reporters, “To hear a martyr talk about his own martyrdom is intense.”
Two years later, Pope Francis elevated the Albanian priest to the College of Cardinals, an uncommon honor for a priest who had never been a bishop. In 2024, Pope Francis described him as a “living martyr” and thanked him for continuing to bear witness without discouragement.
At the end of August, Cardinal Simoni celebrated Mass for more than 1,000 people at Our Lady of Shkodra Church in Hartsdale, N.Y. Less than two weeks later, he was in Virginia.
He continues to travel not seeking recognition for his suffering, but to carry out his priestly vocation. The regime that sentenced him to death is gone, and the faith it tried to outlaw is being proclaimed by the very man it failed to silence.
Cardinal Simoni’s story is one that deserves to be remembered while he is still here to tell it. He is more than a survivor of a closed chapter of history. His life shows that courage can endure decades of captivity, faith can survive in secret and forgiveness can outlast the ideology that sought to erase it.
Pici is a freelance photographer in Frederick County, Md.
