During the Papal audience of 20 April 2016, Fr. Ernest Simoni met Pope Francis in a brief but emotionally-charged encounter. When the Pope saw before him this Albanian priest, who had undergone almost 30 years of persecution under the Albanian communist regime, he said: “I remember your story very well,” and then went on to declare to the rest of the assembly, “This man is a martyr.”
The Pope, who had met Fr. Simoni when he visited Tirana on 21 September 2014, had remained deeply struck by the priest’s story.
In fact, for 28 years Fr. Simoni was subjected to torture, imprisonment and forced labor under the communist regime of his country simply because he was a priest. While in prison, he continued to celebrate Mass from memory in Latin, to distribute communion secretly and to hear confessions. He was forced to endure so much violence that when he was finally released from prison on 5 September 1990 and told that he could resume his priestly activities, he thought it was a prank on the part of his captors and that they were just making fun of him.
After the Albanian communist regime collapsed and freedom of religion was reinstated, Fr. Simoni began an intense program of pastoral activity aimed above all at reconciliation. And he did this in the first person, by forgiving his captors, praying continually that the Father have mercy on them.
Taking Fr. Simoni’s meeting with the Pope in Tirana in 2014 as his point of departure, journalist Mimmo Muolo wrote a book entitled, Fr. Ernest Simoni: From Forced Labor to a Meeting with Francis, which recounts the life of this great witness to mercy.
After the priest’s second meeting with the Pope, this time in the Vatican on the morning of 20 April, the book was launched that same afternoon by the FSP International Multimedia Center, located just outside St. Peter’s Square.
