For whom the bell tolls

May I suggest some ear plugs for these people?

Complaints ring out over monks' bells
By CHRISTINE GIRARDIN Staff Writer

DELAND -- Separated from contact with the world by wooden lattice work, the monks of the Mother of the Good Shepherd Monastery firmly believe their most important duty is to pray for others.

Every day the three cloistered men enter their tiny chapel in a converted home off Mercers Fernery Road to pause for quiet meditation, offer Mass to the Catholic faithful or pray.

But like many other religious orders, the Augustinian Monks of the Primitive Observance are expected to keep the tradition of ringing bells several times a day. For the monks, it's a clarion call in celebration of the moment Mary learned she would become the mother of Jesus, said Father Seamus, the monk superior and a priest.

For some of their neighbors, however, the daily tolling is nothing more than the sound of controversy and frustration, as the monks stand fast against those who would quiet their bells.

Asking the monks to stop ringing those giant bells, one weighing 500 pounds and the other estimated between 1,000 pounds and 1,800 pounds, would be like asking them to stop worshiping, said Father Seamus, who like other monks doesn't use a surname.

"It's against who we are as Catholics, who we are as monks," he said.

The trouble started when the monks moved from their previous monastery on Peaks Island, Maine, to a 10-acre plot among the horses and ferneries of Glenwood. When the property sale was finalized in April 2004, the monks began ringing their bells about 10 tolls at a time daily at 8 a.m., noon, 6 p.m. and 8:30 p.m., much to the shock of neighbors used to quieter surroundings.

Karen Clark, president of the Glenwood Civic Association, said neighbors' requests for the bells to be silenced have fallen on deaf ears, but she added she doesn't object to having a monastery in the neighborhood.

"I just wish they would not be so arrogant, as far as those bells," said Clark, adding that the sound of the tolling bells can carry for miles on a clear day.

There's nothing much the neighbors can do to stop those bells, said Carol Kerrigan, Volusia County code administration manager. Bells and church chimes, safety signals, train whistles and other emergency devices are exempt from county noise ordinances.

The monastery in Glenwood isn't the only religious facility that regularly rings bells either.