In May 2025, a multifaith group of Quincy residents and taxpayers filed a lawsuit to stop the planned installation of two large religious statues at the entrance of the city’s new public safety building. The plaintiffs are members of diverse faiths who do not want their government officials and publicly-owned property to promote specific religious beliefs.
The Patriot Ledger published the first report about Quincy Mayor Koch’s plan to display two ten-foot-tall bronze statues of Catholic saints outside the entrance of Quincy’s new public safety building, which will house the Police Department’s new headquarters. According to the lawsuit, 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 to commission and install the statues 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 the ACLU of Massachusetts, Americans United for Separation of Church and State, 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 to the Mayor objecting to the plan.
The lawsuit — filed by the ACLU of Massachusetts, the ACLU, Americans United, and Freedom From Religion Foundation — alleges 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.
