Thus, despite the Ustashe genocide against the Serbs, the ethnic cleansing and forced conversions, the killings and expulsions of most Orthodox priests, the destruction and desecration of many Orthodox Churches, "neither Archbishop Stepinac, nor any other Catholic bishop in the state ... uttered one word of public protest" against these crimes. "This was not a mere oversight. It was a deliberate policy" as stated by the papal legate Abbot Marcone, when he wrote in 1943 that given the fact that most guerrillas were "schismatics" (i.e. Eastern-Orthodox Serbs) "our Croatian episcopate does not have any special motive to protest publicly against the government in favor of the schismatics". In Stepinac's case this was compounded by his "dim view of Orthodoxy and thought that an unbridgeable gulf existed between Croats and Serbs". Additionally, given both Stepinac's and the Vatican's desire to see a Catholic state in Croatia and have a legate there, "the Church had to refrain from publicly criticizing the government's policies". Tomasevich concludes "the policy of the Croatian Catholic Church hierarchy and the Vatican of not publicly condemning the Ustasha regime's actions during the war will probably remain controversial. From the standpoint of humanity, justice and common decency, it cannot be defended. But Stepinac was not the only one responsible for it, the Vatican was too". Stella Alexander, author of The Triple Myth, a sympathetic biography of Stepinac, writes about him that Two things stand out. He feared Communism above all (especially above fascism); and he found it hard to grasp that anything beyond the boundaries of Croatia, always excepting the Holy See, was quite real. ... He lived in the midst of apocalyptic events, bearing responsibilities which he had not sought. ... In the end one is left feeling that he was not quite great enough for his role. Given his limitations he behaved very well, certainly much better than most of his own people, and he grew in spiritual stature during the course of his long ordeal. In another article, Stella Alexander writes the following: From May 1942 he attacked the actions of the [ustaše] government in sermon after sermon, not only the forcible conversions but the anti-semitism and anti-Serbianism of the regime, the taking and shooting of hostages and the forcible breaking-up of Jewish-Gentile marriages, and he wrote bitterly to Pavelić about the conditions in the concentration camps, particularly the one at Jasenovac. He made repeated private