Perhaps the most neuralgic issue in the early modern debate between professional religion and professional theatre was the place of women. Clerical critics of the theatre consistently denounced the actress as the embodiment of all the corrupting influences inherent in the commedia. Seldom acknowledged, however, is that the energy fueling these rabid attacks on female performers oriented itself not only ad extra but also ad intra. At the same time that professional actresses were becoming more visible in various piazze and stanze throughout Italy and France, religiously inspired women were becoming more visible in the schools and hospitals sponsored by the reforming Roman Catholic Church. The animus of religious men toward the actress must be considered within a wider social context that also included a growing uneasiness with and hostility toward the more public activity of religious women intent on claiming their place in the apostolic mission of Roman Catholicism.