Ernest Simoni Troshani (b. 18 October 1928) is a cardinal of the

Roman Catholic Church The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the largest Christian church, with 1.3 billion baptized Catholics worldwide . It is among the world's oldest and largest international institutions, and has played a ...

from

Albania Albania ( ; sq, Shqipëri or ), or , also or . officially the Republic of Albania ( sq, Republika e Shqipërisë), is a country in Southeastern Europe. It is located on the Adriatic and Ionian Seas within the Mediterranean Sea and shares ...

. He was created a cardinal in a

consistory Consistory is the anglicized form of the consistorium, a council of the closest advisors of the Roman emperors. It can also refer to: *A papal consistory, a formal meeting of the Sacred College of Cardinals of the Roman Catholic Church * Consistor ...

held on 19 November 2016 by

Pope Francis Pope Francis ( la, Franciscus; it, Francesco; es, link=, Francisco; born Jorge Mario Bergoglio, 17 December 1936) is the head of the Catholic Church. He has been the bishop of Rome and sovereign of the Vatican City State since 13 March 2013. ...

Life

Ernest Simoni was born in 1928. He entered the Franciscan seminary in 1938 while remaining there until 1948 when the

Communist regime A communist state, also known as a Marxist–Leninist state, is a one-party state that is administered and governed by a communist party guided by Marxism–Leninism. Marxism–Leninism was the state ideology of the Soviet Union, the Cominte ...

of Enver Hoxha closed the college in a wave of anti-religious sentiment and persecution. He was

ordained Ordination is the process by which individuals are consecrated, that is, set apart and elevated from the laity class to the clergy, who are thus then authorized (usually by the denominational hierarchy composed of other clergy) to perform ...

to the priesthood on 7 April 1956. On 24 December 1963 he was imprisoned by the Communist authorities because he celebrated a

Mass Mass is an intrinsic property of a body. It was traditionally believed to be related to the quantity of matter in a physical body, until the discovery of the atom and particle physics. It was found that different atoms and different eleme ...

in memory of assassinated President

John Fitzgerald Kennedy John Fitzgerald Kennedy (May 29, 1917 – November 22, 1963), often referred to by his initials JFK and the nickname Jack, was an American politician who served as the 35th president of the United States from 1961 until his assassination i ...

. He was sentenced to death, but the sentence was converted into a prison term and he spent 28 years at penal labour, first in a mine and then in a sewage canal. He celebrated Mass using smuggled bread and grapes. By the late 1990s, he exercised his ministry in several Albanian villages. On 21 September 2014 he met

during his apostolic visit to Albania and provided the pope with his own testimony on his experiences under the Communist regime. On 9 October 2016, Pope Francis announced that he would create Simoni a cardinal in the consistory held on 19 November of the same year. Canon 351 of the Code of Canon Law requires that all cardinals must be bishops, but Simoni was given a papal dispensation from the requirement of episcopal consecration. At the consistory, he was assigned the titular church of

Santa Maria della Scala Santa Maria della Scala (English: Mary of the Staircase) is a titular church in Rome, Italy, located in the Trastevere rione. Cardinal Ernest Simoni took possession of the titular church on 11 February 2017. Santa Maria della Scala is a titular ...

. As of 2019, he hadn't received yet the episcopal consecration.

Honors

In 2017, he received the Golden Plate Award of the

American Academy of Achievement The American Academy of Achievement, colloquially known as the Academy of Achievement, is a non-profit educational organization that recognizes some of the highest achieving individuals in diverse fields and gives them the opportunity to meet ...

presented at an awards ceremony in London.

References

;Additional sources *

External links

* * * *
Speech delivered in September 2014 during the visit of Pope Francis to Albania
''Rome Reports'', 17 November 2016 {{DEFAULTSORT:Simoni, Ernest 1928 births Living people Albanian cardinals 20th-century Albanian Roman Catholic priests 21st-century Albanian Roman Catholic priests Cardinals created by Pope Francis People from Lezhë County