Complex sentence: The regime responded with arrests and closure of Catholic schools and presses but, according to Fest, Catholic resistance remained largely a matter of individual conscience and the churches generally attempted merely to assert their own rights, and only rarely issue fundamental objections to Nazi ideology.
Split into simpler sentences: The regime responded with arrests and closure of Catholic schools and presses but, according to Fest, Catholic resistance remained largely a matter of individual conscience. The churches generally attempted merely to assert their own rights, and only rarely issued fundamental objections to Nazi ideology.