At First Things, Jody Bottum previews an article in the latest issue:

A decade ago—after the fall of the Communist regimes in eastern Europe—John Paul II promised help for Albania’s recovery, and in his FIRST THINGS article, Schwartz sharply castigates the Vatican for its failure to fulfill the pope’s promise: Though only a jump across the Adriatic from Italy, Albania seems to remain terra incognita to Rome, and the Vatican officials sent to the capital, Tirana, have not yet joined in the rebuilding of the damaged Catholic culture in such traditional centers as Shkodra, seventy miles to the north.

A key part of Schwartz’s analysis is the claim that Albania offers unique possibilities for interreligious work: Precisely because they all suffered so much under the Communists, the Albanian Catholics, Orthodox, and Muslims are willing to set aside much of their old, Ottoman-era antagonism and joined in the effort to revitalize the religious life of the nation

A counter-argument might be the recent protest by Albanian Muslims about a proposed statue of Mother Teresa. But..Jody does a Paul Harvey on us and tells us…the rest of the story.