Maria is missing. “Maria” is the name that was given in a blessing when a 400-pound church bell was cast just over 120 years ago.
Ernie Heerschap, the chair of the volunteer parish council at St. Christopher Catholic Church in Whitefish, said the theft was only discovered this past weekend.
"That bell has been in that place at St. Christopher's since the early 1960s. It was kind of a fixture there," he said.
The discovery the bell was missing happened this past Sunday just before the 9 a.m. church service.
"Usually, somebody goes out to ring the bell before Mass. And in this case, somebody had gone out and the bell was gone. So a little bit of investigating showed that the bell had been completely removed from its cradle," said Heerschap.
He said there is a sense of loss at the church because the sound of the bell had become a comforting thing to many people in the church community.
"Yes, it has been around a long time,” he said. “There's a lot of people over the years from the Worthington area, and from Walden and from Sudbury, that probably through marriages and other other religious ceremonies, remember when the bell was sounded and that was significant."
Heerschap said it was comforting to people to know that the bell was there when their parents or grandparents were married at the church. He also said that he liked the sound of Maria.
"It had a really, really nice pitch to it. We started our Mass on Sundays with the bell being rung. And that it actually had a really kind of a comforting, kind of traditional sound to it. It was nice to hear. I don't think anybody would ever complain about hearing that bell ringing. And part of it was it was just, you know, to keep the tradition of the bell going," Heerschap said.
He said the bell was first cast at the McShane Bell Foundry in Maryland in 1902 and sent to a church in the small community of Victoria Mine, west of Sudbury.
By the late 1950s, the company town had closed up and the church was no longer being used.
"St. Christopher's was just in the process of being built, so … the bell was moved to St. Christopher's."
Heerschap said the discovery on Sunday was a shock.
"It was such a permanent fixture at the church for all those years, so there was a little bit of additional shock that the bell was gone,” he said. “The bell weighs 400 pounds and it's solid bronze, so it's not something very easily picked up."
Heerschap said nothing like this has happened before at the church. In the past few days, though, he said he’s learned that church bells have been stolen in other Canadian towns. It appears people are hoping to cash in on the scrap value, he said.
"I looked it up. For bronze, it's about $3 a pound. That's the present value. So basically, about $1,200 in scrap value," he said. "Somebody knew the bell was there and they planned it."
Heerschap said the bell was positioned in a cradle and no cutting torches or bolt cutters would have been required to move it, because of its significant weight.
"With the (right) number of people, they could probably lift it right out of the cradle into the back of a truck," he said.
Heerschap said it would be unlikely that one or two people could ever lift the bell.
He said no one has ever damaged the bell or tried anything like this previously at the church.
"We've never had an issue," he said. “It never really occurred to us that we're vulnerable to the bell being removed.”
After notifying police, Heerschap said parish members are hoping that somebody, somewhere will hear something about the bell. In particular, he hopes scrap dealers in the area hear about it, and refuse to purchase the stolen bell.
"We're hoping that whoever took it has second thoughts and makes arrangements to get the bell back," Heerschap said.
He said he is confident police will do a good job, but said the primary concern is that somehow the bell will be returned to the church.
Len Gillis is a reporter at Sudbury.com.
