Make way for saints at Quincy's new public safety building?
However, regardless of the source of the funding, installing Catholic statues in a municipal building is intolerable. While Quincy has a large Catholic population, many of the city's residents are not Catholic, and the veneration of saints is anathema to adherents of a wide range of other beliefs.
Confronted by monumental statues of St. Michael, patron saint of police officers, and St. Florian, patron saint of firefighters, non-Catholics with business at the city's public safety building would have the question raised in their minds as to who these figures are and the reason for their presence. The answer would demand that they become familiar with Catholic doctrine and theology.
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It is to prevent such essentially forced sectarian encounters
that the establishment clause of the Constitution was included in the founding document of our democracy.
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If Mayor Koch cannot understand that the statues' presence contradicts and undermines the constitutions of both Massachusetts and the United States, our federal and state judges should make this clear to him.
Martin Yaseen
Brookline
Mayor rightly argues that statues' symbolism transcends religion
Mayor Thomas P. Koch of Quincy plans to have 10-foot tall statues of St. Florian, patron saint of firefighters, and Saint Michael, patron saint of police officers, installed at the city's new public safety building.
Criticizing the move, columnist Yvonne Abraham would concur with Rachel Davidson, a staff attorney and First Amendment specialist at the ACLU of Massachusetts, who says, 'Having two larger-than-life statues of Catholic saints, or any primarily religious figure, is the type of endorsement of religion that our state and federal constitutions prohibit.'
Abraham then cites a statement from the city in which the mayor disagrees with the ACLU's characterization: 'As we've stated all along, the figures transcend religion and have a deep, long-held symbolic meaning of protection for our first responders. This is about them.'
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If that straightforward explanation from the mayor does not satisfy Abraham and Davidson, then they should consider what
Francis J. Hickey ll
Lexington
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