The essay investigates the perception of dissent in the Italian Catholic public opinion most sensitive to social issues, between 1956 (Hungarian uprising) and 1968 (Prague spring). Its positions are reconstructed, which ranged from the radical anti-communism of the years
of Pius XII's pontificate to the greater sensitivity to dialogue of later years, influenced by the "spirit of the Council" and an equally determined pacifist inclination, which, however, hindered an understanding of the totalitarian nature of the communist regimes witnessed by
dissent.