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Happening ... in the Local Church
 Parish
secretary Mary Revelant looks up as she pulls the rope to ring the bell
at St. Charles Borromeo Church in Peru. The parish is looking for more
volunteer bell ringers. (Photos by Kevin Cullen) |
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 Inside
the church belfry is a single bell, cast by the Buckeye Bell Foundry of
Cincinnati and installed in 1873. It is more than 3 feet in diameter,
and weighs approximately 1,000 pounds. |
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The steeple of St. Charles Borromeo Church rises above the louvered belfry. |
Mary Revelant dons heavy gloves before demonstrating how to ring the church bell. | The bottom of the bell is seen from inside the church building. |
Prospective bell ringers invited to join “a neat ministry.”
By Kevin Cullen
The Catholic Moment
PERU — Ask not for whom the bell tolls … it tolls for thee … and thee … and
thee.
St. Charles Borromeo Church, a downtown landmark since 1865, hopes that more
parishioners hear the call to become volunteer bell ringers. That’s right,
bell ringers.
The brick church, sheathed in artificial stone, has a steeple that towers
over downtown Peru, the seat of Miami County. Inside the belfry is a single
bell, cast by the Buckeye Bell Foundry of Cincinnati and installed in 1873.
It is more than 3 feet in diameter, and weighs approximately 1,000 pounds.
It is still rung the old-fashioned way — by a volunteer who tugs on its long
manila rope before Mass. The tone is sweet and mellow.
Bell ringing is “a neat ministry,” says Mary Revelant, parish secretary and
an occasional bell-ringer. “It’s something we want to restart. It’s not
hard; it’s fun.”
A callout for prospective bell ringers will be held at the church at 7 p.m.
on Tuesday, Dec. 11. Bell ringers will be there to show them the rope, so to
speak … it runs from the belfry down the choir loft.
In many churches, bells and bell ringers have been replaced by automated,
electronic chimes. No manpower is needed; the chimes are programmed, at the
touch of a few buttons, to sound at a certain time. Bell-like sounds emerge
through speakers mounted inside and outdoors. Other churches have real
bells, but with automated strikers.
St. Charles used the traditional pull rope for generations.
“They used to ring it at 6 a.m., noon and 6 p.m. They did that for years,”
said Bill Quigley, 86, a lifelong parishioner.
Those were Angelus bells, calling Catholics to pray the beloved prayer that
began with the words, “The Angel of the Lord declared unto Mary …”
“I used to ring it once in a while. I thought it was fun,” said Vic Tully,
75, another lifelong parishioner. “I was probably 8 or 10 then. You needed a
little weight or it would pull you right off the ground. I’d come in to help
the janitor, and he’d let me ring it. I’d come in after school and help, so
it was probably 6 at night, or maybe at noon on Saturday.”
Thousands of people have heard the bell, but few have seen it. Reaching the
louvered belfry involves going up a narrow set of stairs behind the choir
loft, unlocking a trap door, then ascending a wooden ladder. The yoke of the
bell rocks on a metal carriage. Heavy wooden beams, bolted together,
surround it and extend toward the base of the steeple.
Records show that in 1973, the old bell was connected to an electronic
control unit that activated a mechanical striker. It would strike
automatically on the hour, and it could be set to toll at funerals, said
Father Frank Kilcline, pastor.
“It had a hammer that beat on the bell. It went out in 2002,” he said.
The controls were damaged, perhaps by lightning, and the striker wouldn’t
stop. Revelant said that some townspeople thought something terrible had
happened, such as the death of a Church leader.
Bob Connolly, chairman of the parish building committee, said that repair
parts were no longer made for the electronic unit, and replacement would
have been costly.
“Several people wanted to go back to the old rope. The holes were still
there in the floor for it,” he said. “We didn’t have the money (to replace
the control panel) so we went to the hardware store and got some nice, big
rope. Rope doesn’t cost much.”
The use of human bell ringers, these days, “is unusual. Most churches have
electrified their bells,” said Suzanne Sizer, spokesman for Cincinnati’s
Verdin Company, a well-known bell company that developed the electric ringer
in 1927. “Most churches don’t have sextons anymore.”
Connolly and another man installed the new rope and balanced the bell so it
could swing easily.
A book in the church archives, compiled in the early 1920s, said that the
original church bell cracked. The present bell was purchased in 1873 for
$300.
The Buckeye Bell Foundry, established in 1837, cast bronze bells that were
used in many churches, schools and government buildings.
The bell at St. Charles Borromeo is so heavy that it was installed when the
belfry was being built, Connolly said. The belfry and steeple, then, were
built around it and atop it.
“An engineer looked at the building, and he said that our bell tower is in
remarkably good shape, with no cracks,” he said. “Compression is a friend to
brick. If you take (the bell) out, you invite a whole host of problems.”
At some point, the bearings in the yoke were replaced.
“It’s amazing how easy it pulls. With all that momentum, it will pick you up
off the floor if you’re not careful,” he said. “People have told me how nice
it is to hear that bell again.”
A real bell and real bell ringers seem to “fit” St. Charles Borromeo Parish,
because the church building itself is so historic. The interior features
French statues, carved woodwork, Bavarian stained glass windows, and a
monumental high altar with carvings of the paschal lamb and a pelican
pecking her breast to feed blood to her young — a symbol of Christ’s
sacrifice.
Today, the steeple bell doesn’t toll as often as it used to. It’s rung for
five minutes, starting 10 minutes before Mass.
“It’s welcoming, a neat experience,” Revelant said.
“We only ring it when there’s a volunteer,” she said. “We’re trying to get a
bunch of volunteers.”