She taught the little children about God.
Albania is a tiny country bordering on the Adriatic Sea. It is in Europe but not of Europe. Life was simple and happy in the little villages nestled in the foothills of snow capped mountains which seemed to scrape the sky. It was like living in paradise until the communists came and turned it into a living hell.
It is a Republic in the Balkans. Christianity was established there by the apostles.
Maria was born in Reshen in 1928, daughter of Nikoll Mari Tuci and Dila Fusha. She attended school at the Franciscan Sisters of the Stigmata. She taught the children and ministered to their needs with her friend David Markagjoni. They were teachers. She often paid for supplies herself for the children under her ward. She often walked six or seven kilometers to get to Mass. The dream of her heart was to become a Franciscan. But it never happened.
The country was just getting over a German invasion when the red curtain descended!
The Communist regime was formed on May 21, 1944, in Permeti as the National Council of Anti Fascist Liberation. It declared itself to be invested with legislative and executive powers by removing King Ahmed Zgu, replacing him with Communist Enver Hoxha, and another communist, Dr. Omer Nishani as his assistant.
The Communists issued a proclamation guaranteeing to respect all the fundamental rights of man, the freedom of religion, press, and association, and invoking the collaboration of all the other nationalist parties.
It looked as though a new era was about to begin for Albania and even for the Catholic Church, which had suffered so under the Germans.
It was all a lie.
The Communist fist smashed down by first removing the Catholic printing presses in the city of Scutari with the pretext that they were needed for the propaganda of the National Liberation Front. The plants and presses seized belonged to the Jesuits and the Franciscans.
The two popular monthlies Zam' and 'Laintari' and the 'Catholic Bell' were no more.
On February 2, 1945 at eight o'clock in the morning, in Scutari, eight hundred soldiers, armed with machine guns blocked the house of the Jesuits and that of the Franciscans.They tore down the ceilings and walls and ripped up the floors. They even uncovered the tombs of the dead. An aged priest was beaten until he bled.
Maria was arrested on August 10, 1949. Her crime was teaching children about God.
She refused to tell the children that her teaching was not truth and she refused to deny her faith.
She was imprisoned and underwent interrogations for a year without bending. She was threatened by one of the prison guards who said "I will reduce you to a state in which even your family members would not be able to recognize you."
And so the words of the guard became a reality.
Her clothes were removed and she was put in a closed sack with a feral 'street' cat.
The street cat (feral)is wild and larger than the domestic.
The prison guards commenced to beat the cat, which clawed and bit her. They beat and beat! Until Maria became quiet. When they took her from the sack she was alive still.
She died several days later on August 10, 1949 "...I die free" were the last words she was able to speak. Her heavenly paradise began and her beautiful soul soared up to the face of God!
On July 13, 2016 she was officially beatified by Pope Francis.
Blessed Maria Tuci pray for us! Teach us from heaven!
Thirty seven other Albanian martyrs were beatified on that same day, November 5, 2016 by Pope Francis. Of them, there is information on four:
Blessed Father Lek Sirandi: Born March 1, 189; Ordained 1916
"Delivered a homily in July 1948 about Communist activities in Albania and was arrested July 27: tortured on 29 July and thrown into a large room that was the cesspool of all inmate bathrooms.. He died of suffocation there.
Blessed Father Luigi Prendushi Born 1896: Ordained 1921: Arrested December 1945: Shot 1947
Blessed Father Kole Shllaku Gjon born 1907 Ordained in 1931. Arrested and sentenced to death by firing squad 22 february. Shot at 6 AM March 1946
Blessed Josif Mihali: Born Sept 23 1912: studied for the priesthood in Rome. Celebrated his first Mass on Dec. 1, 1935 at Church St. Athanasius. Returned to Albania in 1936. Arrested in 1945 and sentenced to a decade of hard labor in the marshes. On October 1948, while working, he collapsed from exhaustion and the guards forced the other workers to bury him alive.
All ye Holy Blessed Fathers pray for us that we may endure!
The family of Bishop Xueyan "Peter Joseph" Fan, the Bishop of Baoding, found his body, in a plastic bag, dumped in the gutter in front of their home in April of 1992. 
