Religious freedom fight grows in Massachusetts community over statues honoring police and firefighters

A Massachusetts assemblage is divided connected allowing 2 towering bronze statues of Catholic saints extracurricular its caller nationalist information building.

In an interrogation with Fox News Digital, Joe Davis, elder counsel astatine the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, said Quincy, Massachusetts’ program to erect statues of Saint Michael the Archangel and Saint Florian reflects a centuries-old creator and taste contented of honoring courageousness and sacrifice, not a usurpation of the Constitution’s separation of religion and state.

"This lawsuit is astir a metropolis trying to beautify a nationalist abstraction and grant those who enactment their lives connected the enactment each day," Davis said. "These are figures that are important to firefighters and constabulary officers astir the world. The intent of these statues is to animate and promote the radical who enactment there."

Side-by-side presumption of 2 bronze statues commissioned for Quincy’s caller nationalist information building. One statue depicts Saint Michael the Archangel lasting implicit a defeated fig with a shield and spear, and the different shows Saint Florian pouring h2o implicit a burning structure. (Norfolk County Superior Court)

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Background connected the dispute

The statues, each astir 10 feet gangly and costing a combined $850,000, were commissioned by Mayor Thomas P. Koch successful 2023 and are slated to beryllium installed connected the façade of Quincy’s caller Public Safety Building, a $150 cardinal installation that volition location the city’s constabulary and occurrence departments.

The task has ignited months of heated statement crossed the southbound of Boston, with critics arguing that utilizing payer wealth to show Catholic imagery connected authorities spot violates some the Massachusetts Constitution and the First Amendment’s Establishment Clause.

In May 2025, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of Massachusetts, joined by the Freedom From Religion Foundation and Americans United for Separation of Church and State, filed a suit connected behalf of 15 residents from a assortment of religion traditions.

The plaintiffs reason that the statues nonstop an "exclusionary message" that suggests that non-Catholic residents "are second-class citizens who should not consciousness harmless oregon arsenic respected" by their ain government.

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The ACLU had earlier warned metropolis officials successful a Feb. 24 missive that the program "plainly violates" the Massachusetts Declaration of Rights.

"Placing larger-than-life statues of Catholic saints successful beforehand of a nationalist gathering unequivocally advances 1 religion to the exclusion of each others," the missive stated, noting that the imagery of Saint Michael lasting connected a demon’s cervix was "particularly abhorrent" and "reminiscent of brutal force."

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Davis: ‘This is astir honoring service, not promoting faith’

Davis rejected those claims, insisting that the city’s intent is accordant with long-standing American traditions of civic creation that transportation spiritual associations.

"If we accidental that a awesome cannot beryllium displayed successful nationalist conscionable due to the fact that it has spiritual associations for some, that’s going to necessitate america to instrumentality down rather a spot of nationalist imagery crossed this country," Davis said. "At the U.S. Supreme Court, there’s a statue of Moses holding the Ten Commandments. It has spiritual meaning, yes, but it besides symbolizes instrumentality and justice. The aforesaid is existent here."

Davis compared Quincy’s statues to the Bladensburg Peace Cross, a World War I memorial successful Maryland that the U.S. Supreme Court upheld successful 2019 arsenic constitutional.

"That transverse honored the warfare dead. Quincy wants to grant firefighters and constabulary officers," helium said.

One of 2 spots successful beforehand of the caller Quincy Police office connected Sea Street that is designed to clasp a statue, connected Friday, September 19, 2025. (Greg Derr/The Patriot Ledger / USA TODAY NETWORK via Imagn Images)

The Becket Fund, which specializes successful defending spiritual look successful nationalist life, plans to entreaty the injunction that has temporarily halted installation of the statues. Davis said the squad hopes the lawsuit volition clarify whether nationalist symbols with spiritual origins tin beryllium successful civic spaces erstwhile utilized for secular oregon humanities purposes.

"It could either spell to the intermediate Massachusetts appeals tribunal oregon consecutive to the Supreme Judicial Court, which is the precocious tribunal of Massachusetts," Davis said. "And that tribunal is going to beryllium asked to code an important question and to acceptable an important precedent, which is whether nationalist symbols tin beryllium scrubbed from the nationalist quadrate conscionable due to the fact that they person spiritual associations to immoderate people. I don't deliberation that's right. It would acceptable a precise unsafe precedent."

A bronze statue depicting Saint Michael the Archangel lasting implicit a defeated figure, holding a shield and spear successful a melodramatic airs symbolizing extortion and triumph implicit evil. (Norfolk County Superior Court)

Local reaction

Koch has maintained that the statues were chosen to "honor and protect" archetypal responders, noting that galore constabulary officers and firefighters transportation medals oregon supplication cards bearing the aforesaid saints’ images. The works are being sculpted successful Italy by creator Sergey Eylanbekov, who besides created nationalist monuments of John Adams and John Hancock for the city.

Critics accidental the politician commissioned the task without nationalist announcement oregon City Council approval. According to the suit reviewed by Fox News Digital, the archetypal payments to the creator were made successful 2023, but astir metropolis officials and residents did not larn of the program until February 2025, erstwhile a section paper published renderings of the gathering showing the 2 saints flanking its entrance.

A petition opposing the statues gathered much than 1,600 signatures, and an interfaith conjugation of 19 clergy members from Catholic, Jewish, Unitarian and Protestant congregations issued a nationalist connection informing that the show "sends a connection that determination are insiders and outsiders successful this community."

The spaces connected each broadside of the caller Quincy Police office beforehand doorway are waiting for the installation of 2 arguable statues, connected Monday, June 2, 2025. (Greg Derr/The Patriot Ledger / USA TODAY NETWORK via Imagn Images)

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The suit contends that the statues neglect each 4 parts of the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court’s trial for determining spiritual neutrality. Although the national precocious tribunal abandoned that trial successful 2022, Massachusetts courts proceed to use it nether the authorities constitution.

Davis, however, said courts person agelong recognized that authorities displays tin person mixed spiritual and secular meanings.

"It's precise troubling to accidental that due to the fact that immoderate radical mightiness presumption thing arsenic religious, it truthful has to beryllium taken down. And successful fact, that would springiness a truly imbalanced and inaccurate presumption of our past and civilization if the spiritual aspects had to beryllium benignant of scrubbed out," helium said.

A bronze statue depicting Saint Florian pouring h2o implicit a burning building, symbolizing extortion against occurrence and honoring firefighters. (Norfolk County Superior Court)

What comes next

The lawsuit could soon onshore earlier the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court, wherever justices volition measurement whether nationalist creation that incorporates spiritual imagery violates the state’s strict law separation of religion and state.

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For now, the statues stay successful retention overseas, awaiting shipment to Quincy aboriginal this year. City officials person said they volition "stay quiescent connected the affixing front" portion the ineligible conflict plays out.

"Quincy is doing what cities person done for centuries," Davis said. "Using creation to grant the radical who support and serve. That’s not a spiritual act. It’s an enactment of gratitude."

Fox News Digital has reached retired to the ACLU of Massachusetts and the metropolis of Quincy for comment.