Question

With the fall of the Roman Empire, the Catholic Church took a negative stance on popular theatrical performances. Which of these sentences explains why the Catholic Church looked down upon such performances in the Middle Ages?
At least one reason for increased interest in the Catholic Church was the effort by church officials to bring people back to the church.
At the time, actors were seen as people with bad morals. Performances supposedly drew bad crowds and sent immoral messages.
However, these performances entertained illiterate and uneducated audiences, which encouraged the church to incorporate theater into its teachings.

Answer 1

After the fall of the Western Roman Empire, most of the arts of the Classical period, especially performing arts, were denigrated and even looked down on, even prohibited, because they were considered as disrespectful towards God and His creation. Also, because the performing arts, particularly theater, derived from works written by pagan artists, the Church refused to allow any such works to be known by the public and prohibited their clergy to allow nomadic actors from performing in their territories. It was not until the transition in the 900´s A.D that the Church began to realize the potential of theater to help educate the mostly illiterate population of Europe and thus, in this late Medieval period, theater of a religious kind was re-kindled. But before that, plays and theater in general were seen as an offense to God, and since most actors were Roman in origin and Greek, they were considered from pagan origins and were even threatened to be excomunicated for performing anywhere in Europe. The correct answer is: At the time, actors were seen as people with bad morals...

Answer 2

Performances supposedly drew bad crowds and sent immoral messages.