Today, March 5, is the memorial of Blessed Lazër Shantoja.
Lazër was born in 1892 (other biographers claim another year) in Albania. For his elementary and secondary education, he studied at the Albanian Pontifical Seminary. He was described as a very talented seminarian.
In 1915, he was ordained priest and thereafter pursued his love for the written word. He was an admired poet, satirist, educator, and translator.
During the persecution of the communist regime, he went into hiding in the Sheldi mountains. Communist agents discovered and promptly arrested him. He was accused as a war criminal; he proclaimed himself innocent.
In prison, the authorities tried to make him give up his Catholic faith. Upon refusing them, he was tortured. The bones of his arms and legs were broken. He could walk only on his elbows and knees.
Archbishop Zef Simoni, in his memoirs, wrote that, besides the breaking of Lazër’s bones, tortures included skinning his legs with hot iron rods, and putting salt on his bare flesh, while he was never medicated. Lazër’s mother begged the prison guards to just kill him, so that he would not suffer any longer.
He was finally killed by firing squad in 1945. He was 53 years old. Pope Francis beatified him in 2016.