The Catholic newspaper "Esprit" criticized Petain for his anti-semitic laws, and the paper was suppressed. The French bishops were initially cautious in speaking out against mistreatment of Jews. In 1997, the French church issued a "Declaration of Repentance" for this approach. Soon after Pacelli became pope, Vichy France put forward antisemitic decrees. Vichy's ambassador to the Vatican, Léon Bérard, reported to his government that having spoken to competent authorities the Holy See had no insurmountable difficulties with this and did not intend to become involved. During the War, Cardinal Tisserant, called on the Vatican to forcefully condemn Nazism by name. Following the Velodrom d'Hiver roundup of Jews of July 15, 1942, the Northern assembly of cardinals and archbishops sent a protest letter to Petain, and following round ups of Jews in Vichy France in 1942, several Bishops—Archboshop Saliège of Toulouse, Bishop Théas of Montauban, , Cardinal Gerlier (Archbishop of Lyon), Monseigneur Edmund Vansteenberghe from Bayonne and Monseigneur Moussaron of Albi—denounced the roundups from the pulpit and parish distributions, in defiance of the Vichy regime. Thousands of priests, nuns and lay people acted to assist French Jews, protecting large numbers in convents, boarding schools, presbyteries and families. According to "The New York Times", "The defiant attitude of those churchmen after 1942 contributed to the fact that that three quarters of France's Jewish population survived, many of them protected by French Catholics". French Catholic religious among the Righteous Among the Nations include: the Capuchin friar Père Marie-Benoît, Cardinal Gerlier, the Archbishop of Toulouse Jules-Géraud Saliège and Bishop of Montauban Pierre-Marie Théas.