The former Spaç prison, one of the starkest symbols of communist terror in Albania, became a place of pilgrimage and remembrance during a Mass celebrated by Cardinal Ernest Simoni. The ceremony carried special significance not only because of the apostolic blessing sent by Pope Leo XIV, but also because Simoni himself returned to the place where he served 18 years in prison and from where he brought direct testimony of his confrontation with the regime.
Return to one of the dictatorship’s wounds
The Mass was celebrated on the grounds of the former Spaç prison, a space marked by the history of suffering, political punishment and resistance to the communist dictatorship. In this place, Cardinal Ernest Simoni prayed for the prisoners who lost their lives in the prison camp and delivered a message of forgiveness, peace and hope.
His return to Spaç also carried a strong personal weight. He is one of the best-known figures of the Catholic clergy who directly experienced the regime’s repression, while Friday’s ceremony brought back memories of one of the darkest chapters in the history of the country’s political prisons.
Simoni’s testimony on the arrest and sentence
During his message, the Cardinal recalled his arrest in 1963, after a Mass held following the killing of American President John Kennedy. He said that on Christmas night, after celebrating Mass before the faithful, he was arrested and sentenced to death by hanging.
“Four people put handcuffs on me and sentenced me to death by hanging. The reason? Because I had said we are all children of God, Christ is the father of humanity. We are children of the Great One, let us love one another, love the homeland and defend the truth,” he said during the ceremony.
Pope Leo XIV’s letter for Spaç
Pope Leo XIV also joined the ceremony through a letter, granting the participants his Apostolic Blessing and expressing prayers for all those who suffered in Spaç. In his message, Spaç is described as a place where many people “have borne the heavy cross of injustice.”
The letter stresses that the memory of those who suffered and died in Spaç must remain alive, as a call for the dignity of the person, for the value of freedom and for commitment to peace. The Pope’s message placed the ceremony not only on a religious level, but also on that of public remembrance of the crimes of the dictatorship.
Attendees and testimonies from former prisoners
Also taking part in the event were Bektashi World Leader Haxhi Dede Baba Edmond Brahimaj, officials, believers, citizens and politician Tom Doshi. The presence of public and religious figures gave the ceremony a broad symbolic profile, in a place that continues to bear the weight of an unresolved history.
Several former political prisoners said during the gathering that Cardinal Ernest Simoni had helped young inmates avoid suicide during the years of hell in these buildings. For them, he remains a figure of resistance and moral survival in a system aimed at breaking the human being.
The ceremony in Spaç brought back attention not only to the personal fate of Cardinal Ernest Simoni, but also to the need for sites of political crime not to remain merely silent relics.
In a country where historical memory is often treated ceremonially, but not always with full public responsibility, such testimony remains a powerful reminder of the price of freedom and of what the dictatorship did to the human being.