The city of Quincy, Massachusetts, plans to install two large religious statues of Catholic saints at the entrance of the city’s new public safety building.
In early February, the Patriot Ledger published the first report about Quincy Mayor Thomas Koch’s plan to display the two ten-foot-tall bronze statues of Catholic saints, which would flank the entrance of the Quincy Police Department’s new headquarters. The mayor had already commissioned the statues — with a cost to taxpayers of at least $850,000 — by the time the plans were uncovered by local media. Although the City Council voted numerous times to approve funding for the new public safety building, Mayor Koch’s plan was never presented or discussed at those meetings, and the public was never given an opportunity to weigh in on it. At a council meeting later that month, the mayor’s staff dismissed all concerns about the cost, transparency, and legality of the plan.
In the weeks following news of the religious statues, multiple groups wrote letters to the mayor and City Council — including Americans United, the ACLU of Massachusetts, and the Freedom From Religion Foundation — raising serious constitutional concerns. In addition, a group of local faith leaders from the Quincy Interfaith Network issued a statement objecting to the plan. But the city pressed forward with its plan.
On May 27, 2025, Americans United joined the American Civil Liberties Union of Massachusetts, the ACLU, and the Freedom From Religion Foundation in filing a lawsuit on behalf of a multifaith group of Quincy residents and taxpayers. Our lawsuit seeks preliminary and permanent injunctions that would prevent the City from proceeding with its unconstitutional plan. We argue that the planned religious statues violate Article 3 of the Massachusetts Declaration of Rights by imposing religious symbols upon all who work in, visit, or pass by the public safety building; by conveying the message that Quincy is exclusively a Catholic community and that non-Catholics do not belong or are less valued; and by excessively entangling the City with religion.
On October 14, 2025, the court granted a preliminary injunction blocking the installation of the statues. In its ruling, the court emphasized that “[a] core function of the new public safety building is to facilitate and promote public access to law enforcement,” and that “[v]ictims and witnesses entering such a building often must overcome emotional and psychological hurdles, and intimidation to report crimes and seek police assistance” including “the question of whether the police will treat their claims with the gravity warranted and treat them equally as any other individual, regardless of religious beliefs.” As a result, it concluded that our lawsuit raised a valid concern that “members of the community not adherent to Catholicism or Christian teaching who pass beneath the two statues to report a crime may reasonably question whether they will be treated equally.”
