The Catholic Church and many Catholics were supportive of the invasion, but Fischer states there were many exceptions, particularly of among the village priests since most of them were trained in Albania and were quite nationalistic. Some of them even left Albania after the Italian invasion. But the hierarchy on the other hand was quite supportive, with the apostolic delegate seeing it as a possibility to give more freedom to Albanians who wanted to become Catholic. The Catholic Church had also the most financial support per member during the Italian occupation.