The bells in the tower of St. John Cantius Church have rung over the Near West Side since they heralded the church’s opening on Dec. 11, 1898.
For more than 100 years, the three bells have been serving as a clock for the neighborhood’s residents, ringing six times in the morning and marking time on the quarter-hour until 11 every night.
Until now.
The residents of this tightly knit community will no longer know when it’s time to put down the book, turn off the lights and get to sleep. The church has given in to two neighbors, striking a compromise to silence the bells at 9 p.m. from now on.
According to the Rev. Al Tremari, two vociferous residents, who’ve lived in newly constructed town houses directly across from the church for about a year, recently filed a report with the Illinois Environmental Protection Agency claiming the bells are too loud.
After complaints from two neighbors, St. John Cantius Church, 825 N. Carpenter, agreed to silence the bells at 9 p.m.
‘No one’s ever complained’
"It’s the first time in the history of the church this has ever happened," Tremari said. "No one’s ever complained before."
[Via Vox Lauri]
24 comments
I thought this was a spoof at first. What the heck is wrong with people!!??
True story. I once taught medieval theology at a Benedictine university that has since become a school “in the Catholic tradition” (when the multi-million dollar building campaign was unveiled I inconveniently noted that the design had NO chapel. I resigned at the end of that year). The saving grace of the institution was and is the magnificent abbey directly across the street–now related to the school by name only. Among the abbey’s treasures is a set of three nineteenth-century bells that rings the Angelus and regularly marks the time at quarter-hours from 6 am to 11 pm. A man who had recently moved into a very expensive home but 300 yards from the abbey accosted the abbot one morning, asking “why do you have to keep ringing those ******* bells all morning and night?! My wife and I can hardly think or sleep.” The venerable abbot (the spitting image of Perugrino’s “Saint Benedict” in the Vatican Museum) softly asked the man, “and how long have you and your family been required to hear the bells?” Believing his misery was to be relieved, the man relaxed his shoulders and replied, “why it’s been almost two weeks, Father.” “Two weeks?” the abbot asked. “Fourteen days? Please do keep us in your prayers, my son. Why, we’ve been required to ring them for fourteen hundred years.”
Used to be that one had no right to complain that something was a nuisance if it existed prior to one’s purchasing a nearby property. (Not that church bells should qualif as a nuisance in any event.)
Killjoys!
BMP
Caveat emptor – let the buyer beware in real estate. I would not recommend that these people move to Hamtramck Michigan.
I think I know what Purgatory, if they make it there, will be like for the two complainers.
Ah, good old “gentrification”. Rich people build and move into an established neighbourhood and start bossing around the inhabitants.
My hubby and I lived directly next door to an Anglican church that rang bells every quarter-hour — we loved it, and we were on the bell tower side, on the second floor.
St. John Cantius is a terrific parish. I highly recommend a visit there if you are ever in Chicago. First, it is probably the most beautiful church I have ever stepped foot in, and it has a great story of how it went from almost being shut down to becoming a vibrant and growing parish. Also, they celebrate the current rite of the Mass in both English and Latin, as well as celebrating the Tridentine Mass in Latin. They even have their own order of priests, the Society of St. John Cantius, who are under the authority of Cardinal George of Chicago. If anyone wants to read more about the church, their web site is http://www.cantius.org (though the site appears to be down at the moment).
I attend Mass often at St. John Cantius (it is a great church) and I don’t even really remember hearing the bells.
They are not annoying, they are lovely.
On the other hand, I always though SJC was more hard core than this… I kind of wish they had stood up for themselves.
I know if I ever became pastor the bells would ring if I had to ring them myself. I would have been real nice to the rich folks and told them the who was here before you. The bells and the church or you. The bells stay.
If I may digress, a friend of mine observed the same phenomenon in his hometown a few years ago on a slightly larger scale.
There’s a small airport on the north side of the city. There is also a small contingent of people who seem to find personal justification in fabricating some cause and issuing propaganda like “This airport’s too noisy; people can just as easily drive to the noisier one in someone else’s back yard/in the next town” until they get their way, and then finding something else to change.
At first, people who knew better ignored it because the arguments were specious and the propagators’ M.O. was no secret.
After reading “I don’t know anyone who flies out of here, so it must not be important” for a year or two, some residents living under the flight pattern decided they no longer had to put up with the sound pollution from the airport they willfully moved next to, and got the city to press the airport to close.
Fortunately, the airport was private and just open to the public as a courtesy, on the condition that it would remain open (i.e. nothing short of Meigs-caliber vandalism would get the agitators what they wanted), so we had a nice object lesson in what tolerance really means.
Thanks for posting!
And I have been told: the bells will ring.
Maybe these folks just didn’t get a welcome basket from the church.
Or are they the new liturgical coordinators?
I attend St. John Cantius regularly as well as for a breather from the oft-played musyk of Dan Schutte, David Haas and Marty Haugen, et al, at my local parish.
And beyond that, it was a familar parish to my mom’s generation that settled around it when they came from Poland 100+ years ago. The area, like so many inner city neighborhoods, hit the skids for a few decades. But for twenty plus years, it has been gentrifying until almost the last low-income family will soon have moved.
Everything but the street lights have been condo’d or torn down for condos and townhouses–generally not affordable to your everyday young Catholic couple starting a family.
Given the changed community, I am not surprised that some grinches would register complaints. Although from I see from reading down the comments here, it seems that St. JC will resist the affluent barbarians.
St. JC is a gem and one that Chicago Catholics and all lovers of the sacred in Christianity should thank the Lord, the priests and supporters at St. JC, and Francis Cardinal George for.
John V,
Excellent point.
JM,
Prayer works, but these people can’t be hassling the Church such as they are if they purchased their ‘townhome’ while this has been going on for a while.
Aargh.
It gives me a headache to think about the brazen self-centredness of the complainers. Truly, truly, the world revolves around them! Of course, they may object to the bells on more than mere “noise pollution” grounds – It may be that the sound of church bells also strikes a chord in their conscience. Not necessarily, but is it possible?
I liked the one about the fourteen hundred years! Good one.
Also, I recently moved into a new parish and I am annoyed by the sound of the train whistle (they do this all night) and the smell of grain and stockyard animals! Should I register a complaint with the city to have the whole area rezoned? – Actually, I don’t mind any of the above-mentioned things, I rather enjoy living in the real world!
Me, Me and My wife ( but because of Me)
That is why people have so many mental and nervous disorders. Because thinking of oneself all day destroys the love for God, because only two loves exist, love of God, and love of oneself. Since the soul is “connected” to the body, the soul will influence the body, and mess up your brain and nerves. Conclusion, almost all nervous problems existing today result from something being wrong in their soul.
That is why the key to good health, is to be a Saint.
We have Muslims in our neighborhood, and in the pre-dawn and late evening hours one can hear the voice of the muzzein calling the faithful to prayer drifting in the air. But I haven’t heard any neighbor complain to our council or to the imam. Likewise we’ve had only one complaint about our church bell (rousing the people for the nine-day pre-Christmas dawn Masses from Dec 16-24) from the judge’s wife next door, but that’s it.
In this lawsuit-happy time of Political Correctness I’m surprised this couple did not press for the complete surpression of the bells altogether. Good old gentroifacation, throw enough money around and you’ll get your way. The only bells some people want to hear are cash register bells, ca-ching, ca-ching!
*sigh…..*
I wish I could hear church bells where I live; the only diversion is the siren over the golf course announcing lightening storms.
Don’t laugh. Over in Europe, the bellringing and changeringing traditions are under real threat from both complaints and EU laws against “noise pollution”.
When my husband were having a raising our three children we lived on the Pennsylvania main line and the trains came screeming through our neighborhood as there was a crossing at its edge. All of us slept through the whole thing all of the years we lived there. I only heard it when we had house guests. I can’t believe these folks couldn’t get used to the bells. Perhaps they don’t like being reminded that there is God!
Burn the scoundrels at the stake, and keep ringing!!! Come on Fathers, show some cajones!
This has nothing to do with cajones. My priests are plenty ready, willing, and able to stand up for the Truth. (Just visit one Sunday to hear them rail against birth control or immodest dress.)
But this complaint involved 2 hours of bell ringing, 8 chimes total, from 9PM to 11PM.
It. wasn’t. worth. it.
We can’t afford lawyers to fight this crap, and we want to be good neighbors, even to the yuppies. Who cares? Let those two people have their little fun. They’ve already become the laughingstock of the block, even amongst their fellow residents, who rolled their eyes on the local news about the geeks who live next door.
We pick our battles at SJC. This one just wasn’t worth it.
And I love bells, I love my parish, and I think anyone who doesn’t like the sound cannot be trusted, akin to someone saying, “Oh, I don’t like puppies.”
As good Catholics we must “Love Thy Neighbor As You Love Thy Self”. This seems like it was a difficult situation for all involved however there are more serious things happening in the world — like war in Isreal and Iraq– that need our attention and energy.
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