National Catholic Register, Aug 8, 2025 / 10:00 am

A Massachusetts mayor is going to bat for including statues of two Catholic saints on the city’s new public safety building, saying he picked them because of their importance to police and firefighters and accusing opponents of harboring “‘negative attitudes’ toward Catholicism.”

But lawyers for local residents who object to the planned 10-foot-high bronze statues of St. Michael and St. Florian say the mayor is making non-Catholics “feel like second-class citizens” because of the statues, which they say violates the Massachusetts Constitution by favoring one religion over another.

The two sides exchanged pointed arguments in court papers filed recently in a state lawsuit brought earlier this year by the American Civil Liberties Union of

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