The Unsinkable Bell at St. Landry Catholic Church

There has been a lot of news coverage about the 100th anniversary of the sinking of the Titanic this week. St. Landry Catholic Church is celebrating a milestone this month as well.

The St. Landry Catholic Church Bell ... called the Immaculate Conception Bell ... was cast 100 years ago this month by the McShane Bell Foundry Company in Baltimore, Maryland.

The McShane Bell Foundry is still operating today and our bell is too!

The St. Landry Bell entered the internet world online just over 2 years ago now.

Information about The Immaculate Conception Bell can be found by visiting the website: http://stlandrybell.org/

From an insert handed out at mass that Sunday written by Monsignor J. Robert Romero:

As parishioners have noticed, our bell, donated to St. Landry Catholic Church by the Catholic Daughters of the Americas Court Number 119, cast in April 1912, and installed in November 1912, is back in operation. We may remember some time ago it stopped ringing as a result of lightning striking some of the equipment. We were able to get it running on October 30, 2009 using 1960’s technology. Recently, we removed the 1960’s technology and have installed a ‘state of the art’ computer system to manage the ringing of the bell. This allows us to have the one bell do several types of ringing. These are the Angelus, Call to Worship, De Profundis, Hours of the Day, and other times. I would like to update parishioners about these.

Click here to read the rest and download the whole insert: The Bell Insert in PDF form. You'll find prayers related to the bell ringing, art, and details about how the bell helps us in our worship.

Our bell has been popular with many folks following it on Twitter and Facebook and blogs.

You can follow the bell at Twitter: http://twitter.com/stlandrybell

On Facebook, the bell is here: http://www.facebook.com/stlandrybell

And the blog is over here: http://stlandrybell.blogspot.com/

The bell also was written about in various places in the last 2 years.

In the Daily World  in April of 2010, the bell was featured on the front page ...

In Country Roads Magazine, the article can be found by clicking here.

And more photos of the bell, taken by Dr. Richard Harmon, can be found here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/thecajun/sets/72157629393698841/

And photos from the trip into the bell tower to repair the bell with Monsignor Romero and Phil Borel can be found here:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/thecajun/sets/72157629781348585/



It's now 100 years that our bell has been calling parishioners to worship. In these next 100 years, our bell will continue to be heard ... not just in Opelousas, but across the reaches of the world via technology.