Albanian Communist era martyrs beatified

Thousands of people gathered on Saturday to celebrate the beatification of 38 Catholics executed or tortured to death in Albania under the regime of communist dictator Enver Hoxha. Vatican officials and clergy from several European countries joined 20,000 members of Albania's small Catholic community for the beatification mass at the cathedral in the northwestern city of Shkodra.
"The communist dictatorship's religious genocide took their lives but it could never kill their dignity, their faith, their spirit...," said Vatican representative Cardinal Angelo Amato. Seven bishops, 111 priests, 10 seminarists and eight nuns died in detention or were executed between 1945 and 1985, accused of having hidden arms to overthrow the regime, or of being spies or traitors. Hoxha, who died in 1985, tried to eradicate religion from his country, officially declaring it an atheist state in 1967.