Massachusetts’ highest court upholds injunction banning statue of St. Michael
Massachusetts Supreme Court upheld a preliminary injunction banning the installation of bronze statues of St. Michael and St. Florian on a public safety headquarters in Quincy. The court ruled that the statues could violate the state constitution’s neutrality provision by implying governmental endorsement of a particular religion. The ACLU filed the lawsuit on behalf of fifteen residents, arguing that the statues would alienate non-Catholics and infringe on religious freedom. The case highlights tensions between religious symbolism in public spaces and constitutional separation of church and state.
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Massachusetts’ Supreme Judicial Court unanimously upheld a preliminary injunction preventing Quincy from installing ten-foot bronze statues of St. Florian and St. Michael the Archangel at its new public safety headquarters. The court concluded that the statues could convey government support for religion and subordinate residents of other faiths under the Massachusetts Constitution.
Quincy Mayor Thomas P. Koch ordered the statues from Italy in February 2025 at an anticipated cost of $850,000. The city said they were intended to honor police officers and firefighters and to symbolize protection, courage, and sacrifice.
St. Florian is depicted pouring water on a burning building, while St. Michael is shown with wings, a shield, and a defeated demon. Both figures have religious associations but are also widely connected with first responders and public-safety traditions.
The American Civil Liberties Union sued Quincy and Koch in May 2025 on behalf of residents and taxpayers. The plaintiffs argued that the statues violated Article 3 of the Massachusetts Declaration of Rights, as modified by Article 11, because their placement on a government building would send an exclusionary message to non-Catholics.
A trial court issued a preliminary injunction barring installation. The case, Fitzmaurice v. City of Quincy, then went directly to the seven-member Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court.
Writing for the court, Justice Scott L. Kafker concluded that the plaintiffs had standing because they included municipal taxpayers.
The court relied on Colo v. Treasurer & Receiver General, a 1979 Massachusetts case that incorporated elements of the former federal Lemon v. Kurtzman framework. That approach considers whether government action has a secular purpose, whether its primary effect advances or inhibits religion, whether it creates excessive entanglement, and whether it carries divisive political potential.
Although the U.S. Supreme Court has since abandoned the Lemon test, Kafker wrote that Colo remains controlling Massachusetts precedent for the state constitutional claims at issue.
The court determined that the plaintiffs were likely to succeed on the merits and that the public interest supported maintaining the injunction. It therefore left in place the order preventing Quincy from installing the statues while the broader litigation continues.
The ruling was not a final determination of whether the statues may ultimately be displayed.
The Becket Fund for Religious Liberty represented the city and mayor, supported by a coalition of legal scholars. Becket senior counsel Joe Davis said the decision was disappointing but preliminary and argued that Quincy should be able to use public art to honor first responders even when viewers may associate the figures with religion.
The article also discusses two U.S. Supreme Court decisions that it says should influence the case:
The article argues that the Massachusetts court did not adequately address either decision and that the state’s neutrality provision should not be used to restrict federal free-exercise protections.
The court acknowledged that St. Michael and St. Florian have both religious and secular significance and are associated with multiple faith traditions, including Judaism and Islam. It also recognized their longstanding connections to police officers and firefighters as symbols of virtue, bravery, and valor.
The article’s author contends that the statues function primarily as civic artwork and symbols of public service rather than as government-sponsored religious devotion. The author also points to religiously associated statues displayed at locations including the Massachusetts State House, Boston’s John Adams Courthouse, Boston Common, the U.S. Supreme Court, and the U.S. Capitol.
Becket indicated that it would continue defending Quincy’s position as the case proceeds.
Assess Catholicism’s public symbolism versus constitutional neutrality
Catholicism’s public symbolism is compatible with constitutional neutrality when neutrality means equal liberty for all religions and nonreligion, rather than the removal of every religious reference from public life. It becomes problematic when symbolism is used to establish Catholicism, coerce religious participation, or exclude other citizens.
Catholicism does not understand faith as merely private sentiment. The Church’s public mission includes education, charity, moral discourse, and service to society. John Paul II described Catholic involvement in education, health care, and charitable work as a legitimate contribution to national life, exercised “with respect for [others’] particular beliefs and without a spirit of proselytism.”
Public symbols can therefore express:
The Church also rejects reducing religion to an exclusively private matter. John Paul II argued that religious education can serve the common good and that marginalizing it may injure freedom of conscience, provided that conscience remains respected.
This public dimension does not mean that the state should become Catholic. It means that Catholics, like other citizens, may bring religious convictions into civil society and defend them through public reasoning.
Catholic teaching distinguishes between truths accessible to natural reason and truths known through divine revelation. Vatican I teaches that God can be known by the natural power of human reason, while supernatural revelation gives access to mysteries such as the Trinity and Redemption.
This distinction matters constitutionally. Catholic citizens may argue in public on the basis of principles that can be presented in humanly accessible terms—human dignity, the family, justice, protection of the vulnerable, or religious liberty—without demanding that the state enforce specifically sacramental or ecclesial beliefs.
Catholic theology also maintains that faith and reason cannot truly contradict one another because both ultimately come from God. This supports participation in democratic debate, but it does not eliminate the need for persuasion, legal equality, or respect for citizens who do not share the faith.
A sound principle of neutrality is impartiality, not hostility.
The state should neither:
Nor should it:
The Church’s own approach supports this balanced model. In pluralistic schools, Catholics are instructed to live according to their faith while carefully respecting the convictions and work of others, with dialogue directed toward all people of good will. Catholic educational institutions are likewise urged to engage other cultures and religions rather than oppose them, viewing difference as an opportunity for dialogue and civic responsibility.
The central constitutional question is not simply, “Is this symbol religious?” Almost all explicitly Catholic symbols are religious. The more important questions are:
Who owns or displays the symbol?
A privately displayed crucifix, medal, or saint’s image generally expresses the individual’s or organization’s religious freedom. A symbol installed by a government may communicate official endorsement.
What is the setting and purpose?
A nativity scene in a publicly accessible forum may be constitutionally different from a mandatory religious display in a courtroom or public school classroom.
Is participation voluntary?
Voluntary religious expression is substantially different from compelled prayer, religious instruction, or pressure placed on students, employees, or citizens.
Are other viewpoints treated fairly?
Equal access and consistent standards reduce the danger that a symbol functions as governmental establishment.
Would a reasonable observer understand it as worship, historical reference, cultural heritage, or private expression?
Context can change the constitutional meaning of the same object.
Accordingly, a cross on church property is ordinarily an ecclesial symbol. A cross erected by a municipality as part of an official memorial may raise a different issue, especially if the government excludes comparable religious or nonreligious perspectives.
Catholic public symbolism should not be confused with religious nationalism. Pius XII emphasized that the Church does not belong to one nation or race but embraces all peoples. He warned that a merely national church would contradict Catholicity, the Church’s universality.
This has two implications:
Pius XII further stated that the Church cannot be identified with the interests of any particular political power. Thus, Catholic symbolism is distorted when it becomes a partisan emblem or a sign that one political faction alone represents the faith.
There are legitimate concerns on both sides.
Concern about excessive religious symbolism:
Government-sponsored Catholic imagery can make non-Catholics feel like outsiders, especially where officials use religious authority to justify coercive policies. In such cases, neutrality requires institutional restraint and equal treatment.
Concern about aggressive secularization:
Removing every Christian symbol from public institutions may also cease to be neutral if it treats religion as uniquely illegitimate. John Paul II stressed that religious freedom and freedom of conscience require actual, not merely theoretical, protection.
Concern about historical symbols:
A symbol may possess both religious and cultural significance. Historical meaning does not automatically eliminate its religious character, but neither does religious origin automatically prove unconstitutional establishment. The legal assessment depends on purpose, context, coercion, and equal treatment.
The Catholic position can be summarized as follows:
Catholics may appear publicly as Catholics; the state may not require citizens to become Catholic.
Public crosses, saints’ names, Catholic institutions, religious speech, and charitable works can be consistent with neutrality when they arise from private or ecclesial initiative and operate within a framework of legal equality. Government should intervene when symbolism becomes coercive, exclusionary, or an instrument of official religious establishment.
The strongest constitutional and Catholic position is therefore neither confessional government nor religionless public space. It is a pluralistic order in which Catholicism may speak and symbolize publicly, while the state protects the equal freedom and dignity of Catholics, other believers, and nonbelievers alike.