(LifeSiteNews) — A 97-year-old cardinal imprisoned under Albania’s communist regime said in a recent interview that “chastity is the mountain of victory leading to paradise” and the absence of chastity is “hell.”
Cardinal Ernest Simoni was arrested in late 1963 and condemned to death by Albania’s communist government. “I was to hang because I had told the people we should die for Christ,” he told Reuters almost a decade ago. His sentence was commuted and he spent 18 years in prison, until 1981.
The priest willingly paid a steep cost for his vow of celibacy for Christ. He has shared that interrogators tried to entice him into recanting his faith by offering him marriage with a “beautiful girl.” He resisted and endured torture and rough conditions in prison until his release but even then was considered an “enemy of the people” and was forced to work in mines and sewers. He exercised his priestly ministry covertly until the fall of the communist regime in 1990.
In an interview with Edward Pentin of the National Catholic Register, Simoni shared what gave him the strength to endure his imprisonment, and offered advice to the suffering, young people, and the contemporary Church.
When asked about his concerns for the Church today, Cardinal Simoni replied, “Jesus told us, ‘You are the light of the world.’ We, as sinners, are the salt of the earth, but how many of us are truly the light of Jesus? How many of us are willing to suffer to proclaim the Gospel and are committed to proclaiming the Gospel of Jesus, the infinite power of love that saves all humanity?”
“We priests live solely to proclaim Jesus, to save souls through the grace of Jesus, to be close to all the poor, to help all young people to turn away from promiscuity and immorality. As St. Paul says, those who are like Christ have crucified their bodies and follow the law of morality and chastity.”
“Chastity is the mountain of victory leading to paradise; without chastity is hell,” he added.
To young people who have a sense of “hopelessness,” Cardinal Simoni recalled the words of Jesus Christ to the young man who asked what he must do to gain eternal life, and similarly exhorted them to chastity.
“Jesus said: ‘If you keep My commandments and obey My teaching, you will remain in My love.’ Keeping the commandments means sanctifying marriage and consigning cohabitation and all such offenses to perdition. Jesus must have the first place, like the sun on the horizon, which shines and illuminates the whole world,” the prelate said.
“So young people must be the first standard-bearers, carrying the banner of Jesus in their homes, in prayer, in self-denial, at the Holy Mass, in loving their parents, and in spreading the living Jesus and his infinite love in good faith by loving all — Muslims, atheists, everyone,” he continued.
Simoni offered words of encouragement to “ordinary people who might be suffering greatly these days” to “pray without ceasing.”
“As Jesus says: You who are homeless, without money, without a shirt on your back, without shoes, without anything — come to me. Come, all of you, like children; come to me now, and I will lift you up into infinite joy — to paradise. But seek justice; justice and the glory of the Lord, and you will have every good.”
This means, said Simoni, to “pray without ceasing.”
“In other words, while working, doing your duties, fulfilling your commitments — everything — never forget prayer because prayer is the star that shines and leads us to Jesus, along with the Blessed Virgin Mary.”