Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court Upholds Injunction Against Quincy Mayor's Religious Statues Plan
The Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court (SJC) has unanimously upheld a preliminary injunction, blocking Quincy Mayor Thomas P. Koch's plan to install 10-foot bronze statues of Saint Michael and Saint Florian outside the city's new public safety building. The statues, estimated to cost taxpayers $850,000, were intended to honor police officers and firefighters, with Saint Michael being the patron saint of police and Saint Florian for firefighters. The SJC affirmed a lower court's 2025 ruling, which found that Mayor Koch's claim of a secular purpose for the statues was not persuasive. The court cited Article 3 of the state's Declaration of Rights, adopted in 1833, which prohibits the government from advancing one religion over another. The SJC concluded that the statues, adorned with Catholic iconography and standing tall and alone, have a greater potential to be perceived as a government endorsement of a particular religion, violating constitutional rights. 
