Saint Hildegard was a German Benedictine mystical visionary, a writer and musical composer as well a founder of nunneries. She is honored in the Catholic, Anglican and Lutheran traditions.

Saint Elizabeth started life out as an Hungarian princess. She married in her early teens and was widowed by 20. During her short marriage, she was noted for using her position and her wealth for charitable works which continued after her husband's death. She died at 24 and is honored by the Catholics, Anglicans and Lutherans. She was named a Doctor of the Church in 2012.

Saint Thérèse of Lisieux also died at 24 from tuberculosis. She is commonly known as "The Little Flower" and was a simple and humble cloistered Carmelite nun. She did not found convents or have visions or engage in great works of mercy. Under obedience, she wrote her spiritual autobiography — The Story of a Soul — that posthumously became a best seller. For her spiritual memoir, she was named one of four female Doctors of the Church. She is honored in the Roman Catholic and Melkite churches.

Blessed Mother Teresa is a contemporary. She was born in Albania in 1910 but is most known for her work in India. She founded the Missionaries of Charity who are noted for their loving work with the poorest of the poor in Calcutta. She received the Noble Peace Prize before she died in 1997 and is on the road to Catholic sainthood.

Venerable Mary Ward is also English. She lived through the time of the Great Persecution of Catholics in England (1534-1680) when it was treason to be Roman Catholic. She founded two Catholic religious communities after the start of the Reformation. She is also currently on the road to sainthood in the Catholic Church.

Feminists have embraced two other women who have made The Telegraph's list as pointing to the existence of women's ordination before the Year 1000. Both Joan and Theodora are reported to be women in the early church's episcopacy.

Lady Theodora, an Italian, is the mother of St. Paschal, who for three years was the 98th Roman pontiff. His pontifical reign was from 817-814. In a mosaic at the Basilica of St. Prudentia and Praexedis in Rome, Lady Theodora is referred to as "Theodora Episcopa" which translates "Bishop Theodora." The church was built by Pope Paschal to honor his mother during her lifetime. The "Episcopa" reference is often pointed to as evidence that were women bishops in the early Church, however official Catholic understanding is that she was a "matushka" — a bishop's wife, or in the case of Pope Paschal, the Pope's mother, rather than an actual bishop. Clerical celibacy in the Catholic Church was not made mandatory until the reign of Pope Gregory VII (1073-1085).

The other early Catholic female cleric to bubble up is Joan the Pope. The apocryphal story goes that while she was Pope (853-855), she was able to conceal her gender until she collapsed while giving birth. Her legend did not see the light of day until Jean de Mailly wrote about her in the mid 13th century while chronicling the history of the German Diocese of Metz. It is thought that Joan may actually be Johannes Anglicus, a German monk. Popess Joan was to have reigned between Pope Leo IV (847-855) and Pope Benedict III (855-858) although she is not on the Vatican's papal list.

Rounding out The Telegraph's most influential list are two living women, both feminist bishops, neither of whom are receiving tribute for their spirituality, holiness, or piety but rather their willingness to go against the grain, advance the feminist agenda, and bring their respective denominations to a point of rancor and division.

Christine Mayr-Lumetzberger was born in 1956 in Austria. She is an excommunicated Benedictine Sister and purported to have been ordained a Roman Catholic priest on a cruise ship in the middle of the Danube River along with six others. An independent, excommunicated Roman Catholic bishop performed the 2002 “Danube Seven” ordinations. At least 100 others have followed their lead. Mayr-Lumetzberger claims to be a Catholic bishop through having been consecrated a bishop in 2003 at the hands of valid Roman Catholic bishops who have refused to reveal their identities for fear of reprisal — excommunication — from the Vatican.

The biggest surprise is that 60-year-old Katharine Jefferts Schori has made the list. She is an American. The Telegraph is touting her for rising to the top, not only in The Episcopal Church but within worldwide Anglicanism, as well, by becoming the first female in the Anglican Communion to break the stained glass ceiling even though it brought the Communion to its knees. She is also feted for her support of abortion rights for women.

"Raised as a Roman Catholic, Jefferts Schori became in 2006 the first female primate (head) of one of the branches of the worldwide Anglican Communion, of which the Church of England is a member. She is Presiding Bishop of the Episcopalian Church in the US, where her appointment has caused near schism," The Telegraph writes. "Unusually for a Christian leader, she supports abortion rights for women."

There is no mention made of Jefferts Schori's questionable theology nor her tactics in the courtroom to break departing churches and even dioceses, or her heavy-handedness with her own clergy, bishops included. Her claim to The Telegraph's accolades is that she, as a female, beat all odds — lack of proper theological training (she is a trained and knowledgeable oceanographer) and pastoral experience (only 12 years as a priest and five years as a bishop in a small diocese) — to become the XXVI Presiding Bishop in The Episcopal Church.

Mary Ann Mueller is a journalist living in Texas. She is a regular contributor to VirtueOnline.