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Letter to Mehmet Shehu, in 1967: You are destroying the character of the Albanian, to the detriment of the Motherland

Letter to Mehmet Shehu, in 1967: You are destroying the character of the Albanian, to the detriment of the Motherland
Father Peter Meshkalla (1901-1988)

Father Pjeter Meshkalla's letter addressed to the chairman of the Council of Ministers, Mehmet Shehu

Tirana!

Your Excellency, Yesterday, on 3-IV-1967, at 19 p.m., most of the Catholic clergy that you found today in Shkodër, we have called to the Hall of the Red Corner of the Executive Committee. We were told, among other things, that we would denounce everything we had, with the exception of the necessary personal items of clothing and sleeping, because everything else belonged to the people and should be returned to the people; and that we would not perform any religious service, not even privately: This has been decided by the people.


I thought to address this letter to the Excellency of Way, to express my opinion, not differently, but as a man to a man. As for my books, church clothes, etc., let them come and take them when they want: it is not the first time that I go out on the highway.

However, I would like to express some thoughts in general: Manuscripts are the sacred and inviolable property of the Author, unless he hands them over himself or against the State Security.

As for other possessions, neither the generosity and manliness of the people, nor the most elementary natural law, does not accept that a thing that has been forgiven once to a person or an entity is assigned, to be asked anew by the donor as his own. Speculations and wastes are hit.

And the truth is that the people, in almost every country, have accompanied their priest (good or bad) with oil, as the representative of their religion. A black shadow has fallen on the people when the Churches were closed, the bell towers were knocked down, and especially religious persons and things were allowed to be put into play, thus deeply insulting such sacred feelings of faith. The unbridled anti-religious discrediting campaigns developed with all means of propaganda have had the same effect. In response, the people filled the churches until the moment of their closing. What is the value then of the attitude of an unconscious or fearful minority with all kinds of pressures?

Especially the frightened part with threats, pressures, promises and layoffs, suffers the greatest torture, because they are tied to a morsel of bread, they are forced to deny what they believe; and thus the campaign that is being carried out aims to form a generation without civil courage, without manliness, opportunistic, servile, and destroys the character of the Albanian in the motherland. People are afraid to meet me, to greet me on the street with friends who are in their eyes or "touch". And who knows who they are! Much is said about the Inquisition of today's 500 years, and not very objectively. And for this century. XX? Come to me now. I can't change the line of our life, but I will continue it as long as we have breath. The external obstacle of force majeure will only have the same effect on me as a stone or earth that obstructs the flow of water: The people know me and know well how I have sacrificed my life for them.

I say that, with this war against our religion, we are discrediting ourselves in front of the world, to which we have given solemn promises for freedoms and human rights in Albania. When in 1945, in Tirana, on March 8, I met you, Your Excellency, because I had heard from the communists the words: "We will turn this Church into a cinema"; you answered me: "This is hostile propaganda"!

Indeed, not even the most furious enemy of the Government has done a more friendly propaganda in 22 years than you have done.

I was not driven to write you, Excellency, neither by hatred, nor by ambition, nor by interest, but only by conscience, truth and goodness.

Chairman of Kesh. of Ministers with honors, Mehmet Shehu
Pjeter Meshkalla, Catholic priest of the Jesuit community
April 5, 1967

SP Pjetër Meshkalla (1901-1988) was arrested for the first time in 1946. On April 18, 1947, he was sentenced to 15 years of deprivation of liberty and forced labor, as one of the founders of the "National Union" organization. He served his sentence in several labor camps and in Burrel prison, from where he was released in 1961, but without the right to serve as a priest. During the cultural revolution, in 1967, he was sentenced to 10 years of imprisonment and confiscation of property. On July 19, 1967, in the courtroom Meshkalla declared: "You punish me as much as you want, you have nothing to do with me, I will still go out, because you will soon finish, as you will have eaten each other , and there is your end". Meanwhile, when he met Mehmet Shehu during a visit to Burrel prison, he said: "We are under the ground, and you are above the ground, but we are stronger than you."