Which hermeneutic?

Meetings are part of my bread and butter, some of them being at school but many in my role as a trade union representative. One becomes very wary of the person in a meeting who will say something in a way that is full of confidence, and thereby sway the meeting in a particular direction. Sometimes that person might come out with something that everyone else in the meeting knows is a non-runner, in which case the meeting just carries on and leaves the remarks on one side. Saying something confidently doesn't mean that it has substance, but it can be difficult on-the-spot to develop a response. Quite often what one needs to examine is something that has not been said, not said either as part of the process of persuasion or not said because it is a hidden assumption that you may or may not share with the other speaker.

I think this paragraph from Tina Beattie's post Save the foetus - let the mother die falls into this kind of category. You will need to read her entire post to see the context to which she refers.

We have seen in recent months just how reluctant the Catholic hierarchy has been to take decisive action against abusive priests. Yet once again, we are reminded that no such prevarication afflicts its ability to act with ruthless efficiency when it comes to policing women's bodies by appealing to a form of moral absolutism which has little justification in the Catholic tradition. Until the last century, there has always been far greater flexibility in the Church's understanding of early abortion than Bishop Olmsted's actions suggest - particularly in situations when the mother's life is at risk. Until the men who govern the Church become less intoxicated with their own power and more willing to listen to women who live and love in situations which sometimes create profound moral dilemmas, they will remain the most brutal and ignorant of moral dictators. Once again, the actions of a bishop bring shame upon the Church.

What is Tina's hidden assumption, her hidden premise? This, from another recent post Time for a women's reformation? perhaps gives us a hint. Agian, read the original post to see the full context.

Christianity was and is a religion made for and by men. Of course women have played a role, sometimes a significant role, in influencing its development, but in its doctrines, structures of leadership and practices of faith, it is a religion designed to meet men's expectations on earth as in heaven, and to satisfy their spiritual and intellectual desires.

I have added the italics because of their tremendous implications. Leaving aside the question of the legitimacy of a feminist hermeneutic, to see Christianity as being a religion made by humans of either gender is to deny to that religion a supernatural origin. On the basis of this hidden assumption, even were the perceived male domination to be corrected, there would still be a denial of a supernatural origin to Christian faith. From such a premise, a reconstruction of Christianity in the image of one's own favoured hermeneutic and without regard to those criteria arising from within Christian faith itself, is entirely licit.
 
One can also spot some other unstated premises. Does the use of the word "foetus" in the title of the post imply something about Tina's understanding of the nature of the unborn baby?

"Moral absolutism", as used in Tina's post, decries an action on the part of Bishop Olmsted that is seen as uncharitable and harsh.  In Pope John Paul II's encyclical Veritatis Splendor nn.52, 80, it refers to something altogether different, to the idea that there is an objective moral nature of an action, and that in consequence there are some actions that can never be morally good whatever their motive or surrounding circumstances.  As n.2271 of the Catechism of the Catholic Church points out, such a statement of the objective moral wrong of abortion goes back to the first century. So far as I can tell, the suggestion that a certain flexibility applied to the Church's understanding of early abortion has only been maintained by those who would in other respects also dissent from Catholic teaching (cf the references given on p.99 of R F R Gardner's 1972 book Abortion: the personal dilemma).

It should also be noted that Bishop Olmsted has not excommunicated those involved in this abortion. He has just made a public declaration of the automatic excommunication that is incurred by those who procure a directly intended abortion - cf n.2272 of the Catechism of the Catholic Church and canons 1323-1324 of the Code of Canon Law. Whether or not Bishop Olmsted had made the public declaration, the teaching of the Church would have indicated such excommunication in the circumstances of this abortion - the terms of the Church's teaching on this matter include abortions sought as either a means to another end, or as an end in themselves.

"Until the men who govern the Church become less intoxicated with their own power" - a generalisation from an individual or small number of possible cases to the general, that would actually need a quite wide ranging sociological study of the Catholic episcopate to receive justification - "and more willing to listen to women ..." - see remarks above about a feminist hermeneutic.

The comment that implies that the Bishops of the Church are "the most brutal and ignorant of moral dictators" is frankly offensive.

A concluding thought: I have genuine difficulty in seeing how a feminist hermeneutic as it is manifested in Tina's post can sit alongside an expression of Catholic faith. The sources of judgement in the former seem to be incompatible with those in the latter, and it appears to me that it is the former that is trumping the latter in Tina's thought.