Levada trots out Bride of Christ metaphor

by Bob McClory

In one of his first public statements since becoming the prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Archbishop William Levada (soon to be a cardinal) waded into the theological quicksand that has often accompanied the ban on women’s ordination. Only this time he applied it to gay priests. A priest who is openly gay, he said, cannot suitably “represent Christ, the bridegroom to the bride, the people of God. Does he not see how the declaration (that he is gay) places him at odds with the spousal character of love as revealed by God and imaged in humanity?”

There was no immediate reaction to this question, largely because heavy emphasis on the bridegroom-spouse metaphor is unintelligible to most Catholics. It is, however, the one mystical and mysterious metaphor for our relation to Christ that is trotted out regularly by the institutional church, interpreted in literal, legalistic terms, and declared to be the guiding norm for all time. There are a number of more accessible biblical metaphors that Catholic are familiar with and to which we can relate, like Christ the vine and we the branches or Christ the head and we the body. But no, the bridegroom-spouse is the all-time obfuscation meant to halt all discussion and answer all objections.

It would be interesting to ask Catholics how often, if ever, they consider themselves, individually or as a church, the bride of Christ. Do you? In any event, excessive application of the metaphor carries within itself the seeds of its own potential irrelevancy. Standing at the altar at mass or in other formal settings, the priest does indeed represent Christ, but this is hardly justification to exclude gay men or women from such representation. At mass the priest also represents the people gathered round the altar. And if they are all collectively the bride, it could equally be argued that only women are suitable to preside at the sacred meal and in other priestly activities.

When images and metaphors are seized for ideological purposes, they tend to prove anything the speaker wants them to prove and so turn to dust. May Cardinal-designate Levada prayerfully reconsider this and the other traditional conversation-stoppers issued by the Vatican that are full of sound and fury and signify nothing.