Catholic Church in Albania
[1] Catholicism is strongest in the northwestern part of the country, which historically had the most readily available contact with, and support from, Rome and the Republic of Venice.
More than 20,000 Albanian Catholics are located in Montenegro, mostly in Ulcinj, Bar, Podgorica, Tuzi, Gusinje and Plav.
[3] In 1872, Pius IX caused a second national synod to be held at Scutari, for the renovation of the popular and ecclesiastical life.
The country is currently split into two Ecclesiastical provinces each headed by Archbishops – Shkodër-Pult in the north and Tiranë-Durrës in the centre and south.
Tiranë-Durrës has one suffragan Diocese for Rrëshen as well as metropolitan authority over the Byzantine Rite Apostolic Administration of Southern Albania, also known as the Albanian Greek-Catholic Church.
[5][6] The Albanian Catholic Church experienced a short-lived period of freedom after the fall of the Ottoman Empire.
It ended when the Communists came into power, government, after World War II, and in 1967 constitutionally declared Albania an atheistic state.
"[7] According to the 2011 Albanian census, 10.03% of the population affiliated with Catholicism, while 56.7% were Muslims, 13.79% undeclared, 6.75% Orthodox believers, 5.49% other, 2.5% Atheists, 2.09% Bektashis and 0.14% other Christians.
The documents of the medieval religious history of Albania are best found in the eight volumes of Daniele Farlati, Illyricum Sacrum (Venice, 1751-1819).
Ecclesiastical statistics may be seen in O. Werner, Orbis Terrarum Catholicus (Freiburg, 1890), 122-124, and 120; also in the Missiones Catholicæ (Rome, Propaganda Press, triennially).
Ecclesiastical province of Tiranë-Durrës:
