By now, you may have heard about the indignant e-mail of Sr. Sandra M. Schneiders, wherein she discusses at some length, and with no small amount of rancor, the apostolic visitation to women’s communities in America.

Elizabeth Scalia (a.k.a., The Anchoress) has read the e-mail (which she wickedly describes as a “hootenanny of hubris.”)   And over at First Things, she takes aim, and fires with both barrels:

Sister and her associates seem to have birthed a form of Religious Life that no longer receives “everyone as Christ” but parcels out the hospitality like upper-crust dames who will nod at the social climbers (and even condescend to having them to tea, if it will dispense with an obligation) but who will have the place fumigated once the undeserving have finally been shown the door. Sounds like she’ll count the teaspoons, too…

…There is nothing wrong with celebrating the actions of a community one loves and serves, but Sr. Schneiders’ tone is rather elitist, which is incongruous with the life of humility and obedience to which a sister–even a progressive one birthing new forms of the life–is presumably vowed. Coupled with the cynicism that dismisses out-of-hand the possibility that the visitation could be anything less than a hostile takeover (with an ever-present threat, apparently, of “violence”), Schneider’s “new form of Religious Life . . . Religious who are not cloistered and ministers who are not ordained” sounds like it promotes a selective sort of openness–one so narrow that the Holy Spirit may have to suck in His breath and slide in sideways to get access.

Read the rest. All I can say is: Amen.