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After nearly 20 years on an impersonal commercial strip, the Cathedral of Christ the King moved to a quiet residential neighborhood in the northwestern edge of this metropolis. Church leaders were eager to be part of a community.

Then, on Palm Sunday 2008, they started ringing the church bells every half hour during the day.

The complaints soon began, so church leaders cut back the tolling to once per hour. They put up Styrofoam to muffle the sound. But they didn’t see how they could stop tolling the bells. “We ring our bells as a part of our worship, just like singing, praying and preaching the Word of God,” they wrote in a statement.

The only force that could silence the bells was City Hall.

Prosecutors filed two charges against the head of the church, and last month Bishop Rick Painter, 67, was convicted of disturbing the peace.

Some communities, wary of bells, parochial schools and bustle, have tried to keep out churches with zoning changes and public hearings. But officials with the Alliance Defense Fund, a religious liberties legal group representing the church, said the case is the first they know of in which criminal law has been used to keep a church quiet.

“It’s frankly a little bit astonishing,” said alliance attorney Gary S. McCaleb, contending the case violates the church’s 1st Amendment freedom to practice its religion. “It’s very clearly an expression and outworking of their faith.”

But Phoenix officials and some of the church’s neighbors see it differently. “It wasn’t an isolated incident. It happened repeatedly,” said City Prosecutor Aaron Carreon-Ainsa.

Al Brooks, who lives behind the church, offered a more vivid description. “We were living in a bell tower.”

Due to an error, the first bells rang at 6 a.m. on Palm Sunday rather than at 7 a.m. as intended. The bells rang the hours and sometimes played hymns. They rang for no longer than one minute and fifty seconds, every half-hour, until 9 p.m. Neighbors began coming in to talk to the church soon after.

Painter said the church was sensitive to the complaints. They eventually cut back to hourly bells, 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. They took a sound reading and found the bell registered 67 decibels — the volume of a regular conversation.

Some neighbors liked the bells, church leaders said. They heard from people who set their clocks by it, and a postman who used it to time his rounds.

But, Brooks pointed out, none of those people lived next to the bells. He and other immediate neighbors contacted a company that manufactures electronic church bells to ask what distance they should be played from residences. The response: 400 feet.

Brooks’ house is 40 feet from the building with the bells.

The trial in front of a municipal court judge lasted only a few hours. In the end, Judge Lori Metcalf gave Painter a 10-day sentence — suspended as long as the bells remained quiet and the bishop stayed out of trouble.

She permitted the ringing of bells only on Sundays and certain church holidays. (Source – L.A. Times)

Here’s what I don’t get. Why the “only on Sundays” exemption. The complaint wasn’t over what day of the week they were ringing the bells. I don’t see where the story implies the bells rang on any other day of the week. Evidently they only rang them on Sunday. It was the frequency of their ringing that was being challenged.

I use to live a block away from a Viet Namese church. They broadcast their services over loudspeakers on their roof clearly aimed out at the community. I considered it rude, let alone presumptive. They never asked if I wanted to listen to them chanting and singing. The only saving grace was that Viet Namese is a musical language, so it was unbearable to a lesser degree than had it been Fred Phelps or the Pope.

Could you imagine being an atheist living across the piazza from the Vatican? Oy vey.

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