High court rules against Quincy mayor on Catholic saint statues
August 21, 2026
In the end, there was no divine intervention for the City of Quincy.
After a lower court judge temporarily blocked the city from installing bronze statues of Catholic patron saints on the facade of its new public safety building, siding with the residents who sued to stop it as impermissible government support for religion, the city appealed to the Supreme Judicial Court.
On Thursday, the state’s highest court upheld the judge’s injunction, deciding that he ruled correctly that the city’s actions likely violated the state’s bar on government favoring a particular religion.
In 2023, without seeking city council approval or making a public announcement, Quincy Mayor Thomas Koch commissioned two statues — St. Michael the Archangel, patron saint of police officers, and St. Florian, patron saint of firefighters — that would cost an estimated $850,000 and frame the entryway of the $175 million, four-story, 120,000-square-foot building replacing the city’s old police station.
In a unanimous decision, the SJC held that a Norfolk Superior Court judge was in the right to halt installation of the statues. A group of residents had standing as taxpayers to sue over the use of public funds, according to the court, and the judge applied the correct test to determine whether the statue approval and installation was constitutional.
The lower court record, SJC Justice Scott Kafker wrote, “reflects that the statues are large and will stand alone, they are brand new rather than long standing, they are closely affiliated with a particular religion, and they thus may convey to observing members of the public implicit government support for that religion and, as a result, subordination of other religions.”
This means the statues will be kept in storage and off the building while litigation continues at the lower court level. The visages of a winged Michael and towering Florian extinguishing fire await further judgment, but the ruling signals a rough legal road ahead for Quincy.
Published by MassINC