Flora Cantábrica

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Anton Luli spent his 50 years of priesthood between prisons and persecutions

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Unfortunately, the current suffering of the Albanian population is not something new. With some 3 million inhabitants and just over 28,000 km2, its coasts bathed by the Adriatic Sea and bordering the former Yugoslavia and Greece, Albania is one of the European countries that has felt the most repression from a dictatorship: Albania. Currently there is a process of recovery of liberties there, but in this nation, the birthplace of Mother Teresa of Calcutta, the Church has suffered one of the bloodiest persecutions since the communists took power in 1945 and in 1967 its Constitution declared atheist to the state
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Witness to this painful story was the priest Anton Luli, who died on March 10 in Rome at the age of 88. Fr. Luli, of Albanian origin, was arrested in 1947 and released 42 years later. Many of his companions were martyrs. He did not shed his blood, but he did suffer deep moral and physical sufferings because of his fidelity to Christ and to his Vicar. He himself narrated his experience during the celebrations of John Paul II’s Priestly Jubilee in November 1996.
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In the Vatican’s Paul VI Hall, the Albanian priest spoke before the Holy Father on behalf of the invited priests who were also celebrating 50 years of their ordination: All our experiences, so diverse, made of prayer and work, of preaching and personal guidance of Souls, of human closeness and sacramental action, certainly marked by great joys and by the mysterious shadow of the cross, meet again, like paths that come together from different points, in the mystical place from where they started: the priestly Heart of Christ.
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Fr. Luli himself also offered his testimony, commenting on a mystery of the Rosary, before two thousand priests from all over the world gathered before the Virgin of Fatima at the First World Meeting of Priests, in preparation for Jubilee 2000, held in Fatima in 1996. .
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This was his testimony:
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I am Albanian and my country has barely emerged from the darkness of a cruel and senseless communist dictatorship, which has directed its hatred against everything that could, in any way, speak of God. Many of my brothers in the priesthood died martyrs: I, on the contrary, have had to stay alive. I had barely finished my training when I was arrested in 1947, after a false and unfair trial. I have lived 17 years as a prisoner and as many as forced labor. I practically knew freedom at the age of 80, when at last, in 1989, I was able to celebrate the first mass with the people. But when I think about my own life, I realize that this has been a miracle of God’s grace and I am surprised that I have been able to endure so much suffering.
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I remembered Jesus
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They have oppressed me with all kinds of torture. When they arrested me the first time they made me remain locked in a bathroom for nine months: I had to curl up on top of the hardened excrement, without ever being able to fully spread out, that place was so narrow. On Christmas night they made me undress in this place and tied me to a beam, in such a way that she could only touch the floor with her toes. It was cold; I felt the ice rising up the length of my body: it was like a slow death. When the ice was reaching my chest I screamed desperately. My guards ran up, beat me, and then threw me to the ground.

Very often they tortured me with electric current: they put two wires in my ears. It was a horrible thing. For a while they tied my hands and feet with wires, and they threw me to the ground in a dark place, full of big rats that ran over me without my being able to avoid it. I still carry on my wrists the scars from the wires that were embedded in my flesh. He lived with the torture of permanent interrogations, accompanied by physical violence. remembered

then the blows suffered by Jesus when questioned by the High Priest.
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Once they put a piece of paper and a pen in front of me and told me: Write a confession to your crimes and, if you’re honest, we might even send you home. To avoid blows and blows with the cane, I began to fill a page with the names of the dead or those shot, with whom I never had anything to do. At the end I added: Everything I have written is not true, but I have written it because they forced me to. The officer began the reading with a smirk, sure he had achieved his goal, but when he read the last few lines he hit me and, blaspheming, ordered the policemen to take me outside, shouting: We know how to make this carrion talk.
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When I was released from prison, they sent me to forced labor as a laborer on a state farm: they put me to work reclaiming the swamps. It was tiring work and with the little food we had we were reduced to human worms: when one of us fell exhausted, they left him to die. But at that stage I managed to say mass clandestinely and only from the offertory to communion. I got some wine and some shapes, but I couldn’t trust anyone because if they found out I would have been shot. I did this job in the swamps for 11 years.
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a new ordeal
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On April 30, 1979, they arrested me for the second time, searched me, and took me to the city of Scurati. He had nothing with him except the rosary, a penknife, and the watch. After the search they threw me on the floor of a cell. I realized that I was heading to a new ordeal; but suddenly the desolation gave way to an extraordinary experience of Jesus. It was as if he were there, facing me, and I could speak to him. It was decisive for me. The torture and another process began again: on November 6, 1979, they sentenced me to die by firing squad. The cause they cited was sabotage and anti-government propaganda. But, two days later, the death sentence was commuted to 25 years in prison.
………… «I met one of my torturers…. and I kissed him»
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This is how my life has passed, but I have never harbored feelings of hate in my heart. After the amnesty, one day I met one of my tormentors, I felt the inner impulse to greet him and I kissed him.

The training I received in the Society of Jesus had accustomed me to the idea that fidelity to the Lord is the most important thing in the life of a Jesuit and that sometimes you have to pay a high price, even with your own life. But today, contemplating in the 5 glorious mystery of the Rosary, the glory of Mary in heaven, and thinking that this future glory with God is also offered to us, I can do nothing but address you, with the words of Saint Paul: I believe that the sufferings of the present world are not comparable to the glory that is to be revealed in us (Rom 8:18).

As we contemplate the glory of Mary, let us remain faithful, standing, with dignity near the cross of Jesus, no matter how that cross presents itself in our lives. This is the true teaching of my life: in all moments of suffering and difficulty we emerge victors thanks to Him who loved us (Rom 8,37).

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