{"id":6129,"date":"2016-10-17T16:09:28","date_gmt":"2016-10-17T16:09:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/2016\/10\/17\/there-is-no-religious-liberty-under-leftism-the-albanian-example\/"},"modified":"2016-10-17T16:09:28","modified_gmt":"2016-10-17T16:09:28","slug":"there-is-no-religious-liberty-under-leftism-the-albanian-example","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/2016\/10\/17\/there-is-no-religious-liberty-under-leftism-the-albanian-example\/","title":{"rendered":"There is no Religious Liberty Under Leftism: The Albanian Example"},"content":{"rendered":"

Do you value religious liberty?  Then you must work to defeat Hillary Clinton, which is to say: you must vote for Donald Trump.<\/span><\/p>\n

The Left, being totalitarian, brooks no opposition and is brutal in its suppression of religion. Consider<\/a> the example of Fr. Ernest Simoni:<\/span><\/p>\n

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Persecution in Albania was exceptionally harsh, even for Communist Eastern Europe<\/a>. Among the living martyrs who were present and greeted Francis was Fr. Ernest Simoni. He gave a moving account of his almost three decades spent in Albanian labor camps; Francis was visibly moved.<\/span><\/p>\n

The history behind this personal story is worth recalling. The conflict between the Catholic Church and Communist state in Albania can be divided into three stages:<\/span><\/p>\n

1) 1944-1948 when the government terrorized and persecuted believers and clergy;<\/span><\/p>\n

2) 1949-1967 when the government tried to \u201cnationalize\u201d or Albanize the country\u2019s religions, and to establish a National Albanian Catholic Church similar to the Patriotic Church created by Albania\u2019s then-ally, Communist China. This stage reached its culmination with Albania proclaiming itself the world\u2019s first atheist state;<\/span><\/p>\n

3) 1990 to the present, during which the Albanian Church awoke after decades of martyrdom and persecution.<\/span><\/p>\n

Fr. Simoni was arrested on December 24, 1963, just after he had finished celebrating the Christmas Vigil Mass in the village of Barbullush, Shkod\u00ebr. Four officers from the Albanian Secret Police (Sigurimi) showed up at his church and presented him with arrest and execution orders. \u201cThey tied my hands behind my back and began beating me, while we were walking to the car,\u201d he recalled.<\/span><\/p>\n

He was brought to the interrogation facility and kept in complete isolation, suffering unbearable tortures for three consecutive months. The accusation was that he had been teaching his \u201cphilosophy.\u201d He taught his people \u201cto die for Christ.\u201d During three months of confinement and interrogation, the persecutors tried to force him provide evidence against the Catholic hierarchy and his brother priests, which he refused.<\/span><\/p>\n

There is an interesting American connection to his persecution. One of the accusations against Fr. Simoni was that he had celebrated a requiem Mass for the repose of President Kennedy\u2019s soul, exactly a month after the Catholic president\u2019s death. A journal found in Fr. Simoni\u2019s room featured a picture of President Kennedy and was presented to the court as material proof \u2013 of something or other.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cBy God\u2019s grace, the execution was not carried out,\u201d Fr. Simoni recalled. After the trial, he was sentenced to twenty-eight years of forced labor, working first in the mines and then as a sanitary and sewage worker, until the fall of Communism in 1991.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/article>\n<\/div>\n

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Do you value religious liberty?  Then you must work to defeat Hillary Clinton, which is to say: you must vote for Donald Trump. The Left, being totalitarian, brooks no opposition and is brutal in its suppression of religion. Consider the example of Fr. Ernest Simoni: Persecution in Albania was exceptionally harsh, even for Communist Eastern … Continue reading “There is no Religious Liberty Under Leftism: The Albanian Example”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[102,163,139],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6129","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-communism","category-leftism-and-political-correctness","category-religion"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6129","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6129"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6129\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6129"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6129"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6129"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}