Recently, Marco Mencaglia, a project director for ACN, visited Albania. The Catholic Church in Albania faces many unique problems as well as opportunities. After returning from Albania, Marco was interviewed by Carlos Rosas about the situation for the Catholic Church there.

By ACN Staff

Holy Mass at Shkodre Cathedral. (Credit: Aid to the Church in Need/Magdalena Wolnik)

Albania is unusual for a European country. It is one of the poorest countries in Europe and is one of the few European countries to be majority Muslim (more than 60% of the population are Muslims). Christians overall make up nearly 37% of the population, while Catholics alone account for around 10%. The Catholic Church in Albania is organised into five dioceses and one apostolic administration.

Bishop Simon Kulli (Bishop of Sape) with Sister Maria Kaleta and her fellow sisters.
Sister Maria Kaleta, an Albanian nun who secretly baptized babies and brought the faithful Holy Communion during the brutal communist persecution, She died at the age of 92 in January 2022. (Credit: Aid to the Church in Need/Magdalena Wolnik)

Marco explained that Catholics are not evenly spread in Albania:

“Most of the Catholics live in the northern part of the country, where they even form the majority of the population. The Church in Tirana, the capital, in the middle of the country, is particularly in need. There are very few diocesan priests. Pastoral work is carried out by religious communities, with very little means of support. To this one must add the internal migration of people who come from the north of the country in search of a better future in the capital. The south, which has a very small number of Catholics, can be considered first-mission territory, and a starting point for a new mission. Many brave missionaries have arrived in this region to begin new communities where the church was completely unknown.”

Marco told us that Catholics in the south generally enjoy a good relationship with the Muslim majority. Fresh vigour has been brought to the Albanian Church by the appointment of several young energetic bishops.

A Catholic youth meeting in Tirana. (Credit: Aid to the Church in Need/Magdalena Wolnik)

The Church in Albania has a long history of persecution and marginalisation. During the Ottoman Empire, Albanian Catholics fled and found refuge in the mountainous north of Albania. The region remained underdeveloped during the Ottoman period. There was a brief period of freedom before the Second World War, but this ended during the communist period. Albania had one of the most, if not the most, extreme communist regimes in all of Europe. In 1967, Albania was declared the first atheist state in the world. What followed was one of the most intensive anti-religious campaigns in any of the communist bloc countries. The Church was systematically targeted, both church buildings and the faithful. The full extent of the horror only emerged after communism fell in 1991.

The persecution led to a mass exodus from Albania. Emigration has remained a problem to this day in the form of a continuous trickle due to the economic situation in Albania. Marco explained that the Church needs support due to the economic situation in Albania. Marco gave more details about the support ACN offers the local Church:

Bishop Ottavio Vitale, R.C.J., (Bishop of Lezhe) and Marco Mencaglia (ACN) together with a missionary from Argentina. (Credit: Aid to the Church in Need/Magdalena Wolnik)

“The local church in Tirana, for example, received ACN support to build a pastoral centre for the Jesuits next to the church which used to be a cinema, and which has also been renovated. The centre will be ready by next year and will mark a historical achievement for the Church in Albania, since the Jesuits resisted tremendous pressure and offers to sell the land to build another skyscraper in the middle of the city.
In the capital we are also helping with ethics education in Catholic schools, and pastoral work with young people and students, to give them better prospects and convince them to stay in the country. In the north we have supported Catholic communities in isolated locations in the mountains and provided means of transport for the Church. In the south some buildings are being built, or renovated, to aid with the first wave of evangelisation, in places where the Church has never been present before.
ACN’s goal is to keep the church in the north alive; to help with the evangelisation of migrants and the education of young people in Tirana, and to support the first evangelisation in the south of the country.”

ACN works extensively to help the Church in other former communist countries like Georgia and Armenia. Please join us in prayer that the Church may continue to preach the Gospel in countries like Albania.

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