Parishioners shouldn't ring church bells: Church
pti, panaji | 18 February 2010 22:22 IST
Pealing of Church bells to gather crowds for the purpose different from the religious services has been discouraged by the Goa church.
"Pealing of bells to gather people for the purposes totally alien, if not contrary, to Church services is unwarranted,” said Fr Manual Dias, Chancellor, Archdiocese of Goa and Daman.
The local church, in a notice circulated on 7 February to its parishes, has asked the priests to urge parishioners not to ring the Church bells without a reason and sans permission of the authorities.
“A serious note has been taken of parishioners ringing church bells without even knowledge of the parish priest or his representative,” Dias said.
The Church higher ups thought to put in black and white urging the parishes to restrain from pealing bells after recent incident of violence in South Goa’s Colva village, where the crowd was called after ringing the church bell.
The tourist village was brought to a standstill by the parishioners over a controversial music CD 'Dogui Bodmas', released by local panch Calvert Gonsalves. The CD had allegedly painted local priest Fr Diago Fernandes black.
The villagers had attacked Calvert's house and roads were also blocked consecutively for two days. This had forced the district magistrate to ban sale of the controversial CD.
The ban was then lifted by the court two days ago. Additonal Sessions Judge P V Kamat in his order termed the magistrate's order as arbitrary, illegal and issued without holding proper inquiry.
According to Fr Dias, every church has a designated person, who is in charge of ringing the bell under the sole authority of the parish priest or chaplains, as per the church praxis.
“The pastoral clergy should explain to their parishioners the purpose of Church or chapel bells, urging them at the same time to refrain from interfering in the matter on their own,” the notice says.
Goa has around 200 Churches and Chapels and the state has 26 per cent of the population believing in christian faith.
