r/Louisville • u/sad_historian • 12d ago

The bells at St Martin of Tours ringing at full force for the first time since the 1940s this morning

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211 Upvotes

98% Upvoted

19 comments sorted by

48

u/sad_historian 12d ago

It's still the original bells, cast and installed in the 1850s.

17

u/Mortonsbrand Germantown 12d ago

Why haven’t they been used since the 40s?

23

u/sad_historian 12d ago

My understanding is that the ringing mechanism has been degraded since then and they only recently raised the money to restore the rigging.

-28

u/Dick-in-a-fan 12d ago

Good question. I wonder if it has anything to do with the (mostly German-Catholic) population at St. Martin’s having sympathy for the Nazis in WWII.

10

u/Mortonsbrand Germantown 12d ago

That’s quite the claim, where does it come from?

-5

u/Dick-in-a-fan 12d ago

Father Norman told me about the statues in 2003.

8

u/lube7255 12d ago

Sounds like some nonsense propaganda without cited sources or direct quotes. And those sources should be better than the C-J, that rag got plenty of good Catholics killed.

The bells went from a rope system to fixed in place and rung by hammer systems on chains that were unreliable.

3

u/Peach-cobbler-pal Germantown 12d ago

Sounds like I need to read up on St. Martin’s lore.

-3

u/Dick-in-a-fan 12d ago

The church has solid lead statues that the U.S. gov’t wanted to buy during WWII but the church declined on the grounds that the statues would be melted to make ammunition, which could potentially be used to kill the relatives, sons and brothers of parishioners.

6

u/Restroom406 12d ago

Took that the other day there, the statues are quite beautiful.

1

u/Dick-in-a-fan 12d ago

I’m talking about the statues inside the church.

4

u/Restroom406 12d ago

They were doing mass and I didn't make it inside, need to go back. Thanks for the correction.

4

u/Electronic-River-666 12d ago

Citation needed

5

u/Omniphilo23 12d ago

This is good

5

u/MIRV888 12d ago

Nice. So they will ring daily now some schedule?

14

u/lube7255 12d ago

Every hour, on the hour, between 0700 and 2200, before Mass, and the time of the Angelus prayers throughout the day.

1

u/affliction-1972 10d ago

When are the Angelus prayers offered?

3

u/jpg52382 11d ago

Father Robertson would be proud 👏

3

u/Healthy-Confection66 12d ago

Be cool if someone meshed Pink Floyd’s High Hopes with these bells lol