Pope Leo XIV received Cardinal Ernest Simoni in a private Vatican audience on April 27, weeks after the Albanian prelate appeared alongside him during the Easter Sunday blessing in St Peter’s Square. The meeting, attended by members of the cardinal’s family, marked the reception of a noted conservative and traditional senior cleric and granted papal recognition to one of Europe’s most prominent survivors of communist religious persecution.
The encounter took place in the Apostolic Palace and marked the second notable interaction between Leo XIV and Ernest Simoni since Easter. During the audience, Cardinal Simoni presented the Pope with a cross and a relic associated with Catholics killed during decades of repression in Albania, recalling what he described as the witness of those who “gave their lives for fidelity and for the love of Jesus”.
