Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court Upholds Ban on Catholic Saints Statues on Public Safety Building
The Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court has ruled against placing two 10-foot-tall bronze statues of Catholic saints, St. Michael and St. Florian, on a new public safety building in Quincy, Massachusetts. The court determined that the $850,000 statues are too closely associated with Catholicism, and their placement on a public building would constitute "government preferential treatment of a particular religion," violating the state constitution. This decision upholds a lower court's preliminary injunction that was sought by the ACLU of Massachusetts on behalf of a dozen Quincy residents. City officials had argued that the statues served a secular purpose by honoring police officers and firefighters, whose patron saints are St. Michael and St. Florian, respectively. However, the court found that the likelihood of the public viewing these statues as an endorsement of a particular religion was high, especially since they were not part of a larger, more diverse collection of monuments. 
