The American Civil Liberties Union of Massachusetts is challenging a city mayor’s plan to erect statues of two Catholic saints on a new public safety building, claiming it violates the separation of church and state — and that a depiction of St. Michael calls to mind images of police violence.

One of the planned statues in Quincy, Massachusetts, would depict St. Florian (250-c. 304), a Roman army commander and Christian martyr during the reign of Emperor Diocletian, who is the patron saint of firefighters.

The other would depict St. Michael the Archangel (the patron saint of police officers) vanquishing Satan.

The civil-liberties organization argues that the St. Michael statue “is not only troubling” for favoring one religion over another, “but also because it depicts a figure stepping on the neck of a demon.”

“Such violent imagery is particularly abhorrent in light of the murder of George Floyd and other acts of police brutality throughout this country,” states the letter, signed by three lawyers representing the organization.

Floyd was a 46-year-old African American man who died in May 2020 while handcuffed after a white Minneapolis police officer held him down on the ground with a knee on his neck for nearly eight minutes.

The Feb. 24 letter also argues that “placing larger-than-life statues of Catholic saints in front of a public building unequivocally advances one religion to the exclusion of all others.”

Quincy Mayor Thomas Koch says he is unimpressed by the letter and insists that the city is going ahead with the statues.

“I don’t hold ACLU in much regard, in high regard. So I think it’s just a crazy letter sent without understanding the whole situation,” Koch told an interviewer on Quincy Access Television, the local cable-access station, on Feb. 25. “This city is diverse, been diverse a long time. And I’m proud of our city, and we do great work in so many different areas. We’re at the top of the heap of services provided to everybody in this city, whatever their background is. So I think that’s a lot of malarkey.”

How It Came About

The $175-million five-story, 120,000-square-foot public safety building is scheduled to open in October 2025 in Quincy, a city of about 100,000 just south of Boston. It will house the city’s police department, the administrative offices of the fire department, and emergency services, among other things.

The Quincy City Council approved initial funding for the project in April 2021 and then additional funding to accommodate cost increases in November 2022, according to The Patriot Ledger, a local daily newspaper. The plans at the time did not include artwork.

“And at some point … the mayor was looking at the side of the building, and he said, ‘Do you think we could do something out front? Do we have any flexibility within the budget to do some artwork out front to enhance the facade of the building?’” said Christopher Walker, the mayor’s chief of staff, during a city council meeting Feb. 24.

The answer was Yes. On his own authority and without announcing it, the mayor decided to add 10-foot bronze statues of St. Florian and St. Michael, at an estimated cost of $850,000.

“This was ultimately and only the mayor’s decision. He believes in this. He thinks it’s the right thing to do,” Walker said.

Koch, a Catholic, has served as mayor of Quincy since 2007. He hosted a pro-life event at a stadium in Quincy in June 2021. He left the Democratic Party in 2017 over what he described as the party’s intolerance of people who oppose abortion.

The Register sought an interview with Koch but did not hear back by publication of this story.

For and Against

The statues have drawn stiff opposition since the plan to erect them became public last month.

City Councillor Nina Liang said during the council meeting Feb. 24 that she wanted to “just express what has been shared with me, that folks are very unhappy with these statues, that folks prefer to see some other sort of … art there” and want to “be able to have a conversation about what are some alternatives.”

An online petition calling for canceling the statues, arguing that “they are inappropriate for a diverse city such as Quincy” and that the “violence” portrayed in the St. Michael statue “is especially frightening and conjures images of police violence,” had gotten more than 1,400 signatures as of Friday morning.

Supporters of the statues say they interpret them as more cultural than religious and as a vehicle to express solidarity with police officers and firefighters by displaying their patron saints in public.

“I’m fine with the way that the setup is. I’m fine with the artwork. I’m fine that it’s a message of support. I never took it as a religious — any type of religious-type annotation, that we were going down that path,” City Councillor David McCarthy said during the Feb. 24 meeting.

Quincy Police Chief Mark Kennedy also endorsed the statues.

“And I can just tell you that, from my perspective, they’re symbols of the police and the fire department. And I think they are so much more than religious and political. I think they remind each of us of the respective oaths that we took when we took this job. And again, from my perspective, and I hope I’m speaking for the men and women of the police and the fire department when I say that I see them as symbols of protection, justice, bravery and sacrifice,” Chief Kennedy said, to applause from the audience, which included many police officers and firefighters.

But a city councilor who is a retired police officer in Quincy opposes the statues — even though, he said, he received a small statue of St. Michael when he first became a police officer in 1980.

“The intention was to find comfort that a specific Saint was the symbol of justice and a spiritual warrior who fights evil and ultimately watching over those in law enforcement. Although this may provide spiritual comfort to some Officers, religion aside, the image of the angel brandishing a sword or spear to the devil to ward off evil may not translate to contemporary times,” City Councillor Dan Minton wrote in a Facebook post last month.

“Although it is only a statue, the violent image is not the way Police Officers conduct themselves,” Minton wrote. “I don’t know if this new statue is going to depict the same violent image but from what I have researched, most do. It made me think of brutal force and I don’t want citizens to connect this statue with the way our Officers treat anyone.”

Court Challenge Coming?

The American Civil Liberties Union of Massachusetts on Feb. 27 sent the city an extensive public records request relating to the statues. The Register asked if the request is designed to set up a lawsuit against the city but did not hear back on that point by publication.

As the Register has reported, the current majority on the U.S. Supreme Court has taken an expansive view of the free exercise of religion, which is guaranteed by the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution. But government in the United States can’t make a religious-liberty claim on behalf of itself, and it’s another portion of the First Amendment — that Congress (and other levels of government, through the so-called incorporation doctrine) “shall make no law respecting the establishment of religion” — that would likely be the central issue in a court challenge over the statues.

Dwight Duncan, a constitutional law professor at the University of Massachusetts School of Law who has represented clients in religious-liberty cases, told the Register that the city may have a tough time winning if opponents of the statues file a lawsuit, given past court decisions at the state and federal levels in this area.

“The U.S. Supreme Court as currently constituted might approve it, but even then it’s kind of questionable, because all of the religious landscaping cases have put a lot of emphasis on context,” Duncan told the Register. “If there were other statues, maybe it would be okay. Larger-than-life statues of saints at government buildings have a kind of Catholic resonance, which is problematic under the Establishment Clause.”

Other Faiths?

Some supporters of the statues have argued that St. Florian and St. Michael aren’t merely Catholic figures.

Florian, for instance, is also venerated by Eastern Orthodox churches. Michael appears in the Hebrew Scriptures, the central religious text of Judaism, in the Book of Daniel (10:13; 10:21; 12:1). He is also mentioned in the Quran, the central religious text of Islam.

The most famous depiction of Michael is in the Book of Revelation (12:7-12), which describes him as leading the angels loyal to God in a war in heaven against Satan and his followers, leading to Satan and the other bad angels being “thrown down to earth.”

Michael has been a popular figure for Catholic artists since the Middle Ages. He is often shown as standing on or over Satan, as a symbol of God triumphing over evil.

One example: In 1518, the Italian Renaissance artist Raphael painted St. Michael Vanquishing Satan, which depicts Michael in military dress stepping on the back of Satan and about to run a spear through him.

That Catholic association with Michael makes a statue of him inappropriate for a government building, opponents say.

“It conveys the message that Quincy is a Catholic community and that non-Catholics do not belong or are less valued. It is especially troubling to send this kind of message at the public safety building, where all Quincy residents should feel safe and welcomed to speak with and seek assistance from their public safety officials,” the letter from the American Civil Liberties Union of Massachusetts states.

While some people find images of St. Michael disturbing, some Catholics find linking such images to police brutality disturbing.

Mark Miravalle, a theology professor at Franciscan University of Steubenville who has written about angels, said associating one with the other is absurd.

“To compare a classic Christian biblical depiction of St. Michael defeating Satan as found in the Bible (Revelation 12:7-9) to the recent politized event concerning the unfortunate death of George Floyd, and, as a result, to reject this perennial Christian image is to manifest a gross historical ignorance of the basic Judeo-Christian concept of the battle between good and evil and its appropriate civil representation,” Miravalle told the Register.

“Just as public civil prayer does not violate an authentic understanding of the separation of church and state,” he said, “neither does the public civil use of images depicting perpetual Christian truths like the battle between right and wrong, between good and evil, and the value of public protection of human beings and their dignity from unjust aggressors.”