The following is a press statement from the Catholic Action League of Massachusetts…
The plan by the Mayor of Quincy, Massachusetts, Thomas Koch, to include statues of the patron saints of police officers and fire fighters — Saint Michael and Saint Florian — in the city’s new $175 million public safety headquarters, provoked, predictably, the wrath of local leftists.
These disgruntled radicals, denominated as the Quincy Interfaith Network, outraged and anxious to litigate, sought out legal representation from four organizations notorious for their loathing and opposition to all things Catholic — the American Civil Liberties Union of Massachusetts, the national ACLU, the Freedom From Religion Foundation, and Americans United for Separation of Church and State.
These four groups filed suit against the City of Quincy in Norfolk County Superior Court on May 27th, alleging that the statues violate Article III of the Declaration of Rights of the Massachusetts Constitution, which states “no subordination of any one sect or denomination to another shall ever be established by law.”
After Superior Court Judge William Sullivan issued a preliminary injunction against the city on October 14th, Matt Lamb, the Associate Editor of The College Fix, contacted the Catholic Action League of Massachusetts, seeking a comment from C. J. Doyle.
In response, League Executive Director C. J. Doyle issued the following statement:
Mayor Koch was correct in asserting that the images of Saint Michael and Saint Florian honor the culture and reflect the iconography of police officers and firefighters.
Florian Hall in Dorchester is the home of Boston Firefighters Local 718, International Association of Firefighters.
The First Responders Foundation sponsors the Ancient Order of Saint Michael and Saint Florian, which awards a two sided medal to police officers, firefighters and emergency medical technicians who have ‘demonstrated the highest standards of integrity, bravery, honor and moral character, displaying an outstanding degree of professional competence, and leadership.’
The ACLU claims that the statues violate the separation of church and state — a phrase which is found in neither the U.S. Constitution nor the Constitution of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts.
These extreme, anti-Christian secularists are engaged in a selective application of that concept.
For many years, the West Roxbury District of Boston had a Theodore Parker Public School, named after the notorious Unitarian minister and vicious anti-Catholic bigot, who wrote that ‘after slavery, Catholicism is the most dangerous institution in America,‘ and who demanded that ‘Paddys’ be quarantined for 21 years upon arrival in America, claiming that they could never be truly ‘cleaned.’
One of the oldest public libraries in the Commonwealth, Cary Library in Lexington, has a famous bust of Theodore Parker.
How is it that a grim visaged bust of a hate mongering minister is acceptable on public property, while the benign images of two saints are not?
School Street in Jamaica Plain, to this day, has an Ellis Mendel Public School, named after the Reverend Ellis Mendel, a 19th century Congregationalist minister in Boston.
Statue opponents claim that their presence on public property advances a sectarian purpose, exclusive to Catholicism.
Saint Michael and Saint Florian are venerated however, in the Eastern Orthodox Church and in Oriental Orthodoxy, and Saint Michael’s feast day can is celebrated in the liturgical calendars of Anglicanism and Lutheranism.
Moreover, works of art of religious significance are displayed in public buildings throughout America, including the U.S Capitol, the Massachusetts State House, the Boston Public Library, the Cambridge Public Library and Newton City Hall.
Finally, Judge William Sullivan — a 2014 appointee of left-wing Democrat Governor Deval Patrick — erred in finding against Mayor Koch’s claim that opposition to the statues was animated by the anti-Catholic bias, saying that the ‘plaintiffs do not seek to exclude, burden or target Catholic beliefs.’
Any notion that the ACLU, the FFRF and Americans United, who represent the plaintiffs, are disinterested defenders of the Constitution is absurdly disingenuous.
In 2015, the ACLU — a militant, anti-Christian hate group — sued to force the Catholic hospitals of Trinity Health Corporation to perform abortions, claiming that by refusing to kill unborn children, Catholic healthcare institutions ‘use their religious identity to discriminate against, and harm, women.’
In 2016, the ACLU filed a civil rights complaint with the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services against Ascension Health because one of its hospitals refused to sterilize a woman who demanded a tubal ligation. The ACLU called it ‘sex discrimination.’
It has tried, unsuccessfully, to use the power of the courts to compel Catholic schools to employ civilly ‘married’ homosexuals.
It has litigated and lobbied, for half a century, to deny conscience protections to pro-life doctors, nurses, and pharmacists.
The ACLU has even brought suit against the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops for insisting that Catholic hospitals abide by the Ethical and Religious Directives For Catholic Health Care Services.
The fanatics of the FFRF would reduce freedom of religion to the mere Soviet style freedom of worship. They oppose chaplaincy services for the armed forces and for veterans hospitals, Nativity scenes on public property, and voucher programs for non-public school students.
They believe Catholic priests should be forced, under threat of imprisonment, to violate the seal of the confessional. They actually administer a program to encourage Christian clergy to leave their ministries and become atheists.
The FFRF has complained about the existence of a Catholic majority on the Supreme Court.
Organized in 1948 as Protestants and Other Americans United for Separation of Church and State, the origins of Americans United were found in Scottish Rite Freemasonry.
It once denounced Catholicism as ‘more dangerous …than Communism.’
POAU opposed the licensing of Catholic television stations at Jesuit universities, claiming that the Society of Jesus was an ‘alien organization.’
In 1958, POAU demanded that American cardinals be stripped of their citizenship for voting in a foreign election — the conclave which elected Pope John XXIII.
In one of its more hysterical outbursts, it called upon the House Un-American Activities Committee to investigate alleged Vatican espionage in the United States.
Its multi-generational obsession has been to stop state aid to Catholic schools.
Boston’s Richard Cardinal Cushing called the hate group “a refined form of the Ku Klux Klan.”
Contrary to the fatuous assertion of Judge Sullivan, the opposition movement to the statues is riddled with odium fidei.
(C.J. Doyle’s uncle was the late Boston Fire Fighter John F. Doyle, a long time member of the Boston Fire Department’s Arson Squad.)
