Martyrdom today (38 years of torture and imprisonment of Albanian Jesuit Father Mikel Koliqi under the Communist government).

At the 50th anniversary of the Holy Father's ordination to the priesthood in October 1996, Albanian Jesuit Father Anton Luli related his life of imprisonment and torture in a poignant testimony which underscored the persecution of priests throughout the world. In fact, this century has seen greater persecution of Christians, laymen and clergy, than ever before, as documented recently in two books--The Lion's Den, by Nina Shea, and Their Blood Cries Out by Paul Marshall--both on Christian martyrdom in the twentieth century.

Fr. Luli's story, told at a November 7 Vespers service celebrating John Paul's jubilee, received a sustained ovation from those present, including the Pope. Here is a shortened version of his address:

Each one of us would like to confide his own story of the past 50 years to your fatherly heart. However, since this is impossible, out of obedience I do so on behalf of us all, because my story as a priest is so unusual.

I had recently become a priest when the communist dictatorship took over my country, Albania, with its most ruthless religious persecution. Some of my confreres, after a trial of lies and deceit, were shot and died as martyrs of the faith. Like bread broken and blood poured out for my country's salvation, they celebratred their last personal Eucharist. It was 1946.

Instead the Lord asked me to live. Opening my arms and letting myself be nailed to the cross, thus I celebrated my Eucharist, my priestly offering in the ministry denied me, a life spent in chains and every kind of torture.

On 19 December 1947, they arrested me and charged me with provoking unrest and with propaganda against the government. I lived in solitary confinement for 17 years, and for many more in forced labour. My first prison in that freezing month of December was a lavatory in a village situated in the mountains of Shkodre. I stayed there for nine months, forced to crouch on hardened excrement, and never being able to stretch out because the space was so small. On Christmas night that year (how could I forget?) they dragged me from that place and put me in another lavatory on the second floor of the prison. They forced me to strip and hung me up with a rope passed under my arms. I was naked and could barely touch the ground with the tips of my toes. I felt my body slowly and inexorably failing me. The cold gradually crept up my limbs, and when it reached my breast and my heart was about to give in, I gave a desperate cry. My torturers arrived; they pulled me down and kicked me all over. That night, in that place and in the solitude of that first torture, I experienced the real meaning of the Incarnation and the Cross.

But in this suffering, I had beside me and within me the comforting presence of the Lord Jesus, the Eternal High Priest. At times his support was something I can only call "extraordinary", so great was the joy and comfort he communicated to me.

But I have never felt resentment for those who, humanly speaking, robbed me of my life. They released me in the 1989 amnesty. I was 79 years old. After my release, I happened to meet one of my torturers in the street. I took pity on him; I went towards him and embraced him.

This was my experience as a priest throughout these years. It is a very unusual experience compared to that of many priests, but certainly not unique. There are thousands of priests who have been persecuted in their lives because of the priesthood of Christ. Their experiences differ but they are united by love. The priest is first and foremost someone who has known love; he is a man who lives in order to love. To love Christ and to love everyone in him, in all life's circumstances, to the point of giving up his life.

Everything can be taken from us, but no one can wrench from our hearts our love for Jesus or our love for our brothers and sisters. In this regard, today as in the past and as it always has been, we can say with conviction and with joy, in Paul's words, "Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? As it is written, `For your sake we are being killed all the day long; we are regarded as sheep to be slaughtered.' No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us" (Rom. 8:35-37).

L'Osservatore Romano 

Cardinal Mikel Koliqi, who suffered long imprisonment, dies at age of 94

Cardinal Mikel Koliqi, an Albanian priest who spent 38 years of his priesthood imprisoned for the faith, died on 28 January at the age of 94.

During the harsh communist persecution, Fr. Koliqi was imprisoned three times and sentenced to a total of 44 years, i.e., 21 years of hard labour and 23 years of internment. Six of those years were commuted because of old age (he was 84). The pretext for the sentences was that he had listened to foreign radio broadcasts and organized young people.

For this whole range of activities and especially for the zeal with which he undertook them, he was arrested for the first time on 3 February 1945. He was tried and given a two-year suspended prison sentence. The threat of imprisonment did not succeed in putting an end to his activity; indeed, he redoubled it so that in 1946 he was sentenced to five years internment. He was released in 1951 and until 1954 was able to continue his work of evangelization. Nevertheless, the communist persecution was implacable and he was again arrested and imprisoned in various labour camps: Lsunie, Gradishta, Gjas, Valona and others. Only in 1986 did he finally regain his freedom. Forty-two years had passed since he was first arrested.

He was created a Cardinal in the Consistory of 26 November 1994.