On May 6, more than a dozen Quincy residents with diverse religious beliefs asked Massachusetts’ highest court to uphold a ruling that blocked the Quincy mayor’s plan to install two large religious statues at the entrance of the city’s new public safety building.
Represented by Americans United for Separation of Church and State, the American Civil Liberties Union of Massachusetts, the ACLU, the Freedom From Religion Foundation, and Cloherty & Steinberg LLP, the plaintiffs argued that installing the ten-foot-tall religious statues would undermine religious pluralism in Quincy and violate the Massachusetts Constitution’s longstanding requirement that the government remain neutral in matters of religion. Those statues depict the Catholic iconography of Saint Michael the Archangel and Saint Florian as the sole adornments on the building’s facade.
The hearing followed an October 2025 ruling by a Norfolk Superior Court judge, which held that the city’s planned religious display would likely violate Article 3 of the Massachusetts Declaration of Rights and temporarily enjoined the city from proceeding with the installation. The city appealed that ruling to the Supreme Judicial Court.
The plaintiffs in Fitzmaurice v. City of Quincy filed their lawsuit in May 2025 after local media revealed Mayor Thomas P. Koch’s plan to install the statues, which had been commissioned in secret nearly a year and a half earlier. The estimated cost to taxpayers is at least $850,000. None of these details had previously been disclosed either to the public or to the full Quincy City Council.
Prior to the filing, an online petition with over 1,600 signatures and a statement from 19 local faith leaders had expressed opposition to the mayor’s plan to install the statues.
“Mayor Koch is abusing the power of his government office to impose religious beliefs on all Quincy residents,” said Rachel Laser, president and CEO of Americans United for Separation of Church and State, as plaintiffs last month petitioned Massachusetts’ highest court to continue blocking the installation of the religious statues.
“The core principles of church-state separation and religious freedom promised in the Massachusetts Constitution require government buildings and other public spaces to be inclusive of people of all religions and none,” Laser continued. “By installing religious statues in front of the government building dedicated to public safety, Koch and the City are violating that promise and sending a message to all who rely on city police and fire services that one faith is favored over all others.”