That’s the griffin which is a medieval symbol of fidelity in marriage. There are many grotesque images in medieval churches in Europe. That’s why they don’t look like modern American churches built to resemble gymnasiums.
A griffin is mythology and has no place being part of any Christian anything.
Roman Catholicism’s willingness to incorporate such things in it’s churches and worship is indicative of its willingness to cooperate with the devil.
Meaning by adoption, for despite your attempt to redeem the demonic, these grotesque graven images are of pagan origin, found in ancient Persian and Egyptian mythology, which, along with many other things, were adopted by Rome, as Newman affirms, which was part of her religious syncretism.
Unlike a harmless symbolic item such as a marriage ring, these gross images have no place as high and lifted up , demonic graven creatures in the context of religious devotion, even guarding buildings for that purpose and which people lift up their eyes to, and would be cast down by faithful Jews as well as NT Christians as contrary to the command against "Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of any thing that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth" (Exodus 20:4) in the context of religious devotion. The only images allowed in the Temple were those God specifically commanded, versus their own initiative, and represented heavenly beings, not the demonic.
Your own Bernard of Clairvaux spoke out against such gargoyles, which certainly also applies to later grotesque versions:
What are these fantastic monsters doing in the cloisters before the eyes of the brothers as they read? What is the meaning of these unclean monkeys, these strange savage lions, and monsters? To what purpose are here placed these creatures, half beast, half man, or these spotted tigers? I see several bodies with one head and several heads with one body. Here is a quadruped with a serpent's head, there a fish with a quadruped's head, then again an animal half horse, half goat... Surely if we do not blush for such absurdities, we should at least regret what we have spent on them. ("Apologia ad Guillelmum abbatem.")
Rather than being compelled to defend the errors of Rome, true Christians defend what the only wholly inspired record of what the NT church believed, and in which Catholic distinctive are not what is manifest .