New bells for Gozo Cathedral

Five new church bells for the Gozo Cathedral will be blessed by Bishop Nikol Cauchi on Saturday.

In 2001, after careful consideration, and a frequency sample carried out by campanologist Kenneth Cauchi to determine the bells' musical qualities, the Cathedral authorities decided to accept a proposal from John Taylor Bellfounders of Loughborough, England, which had analysed Mr Cauchi's sample, to install five new church bells, which would be keyed in G natural.

This is due to the fact that five original bells of the Gozo Cathedral, which were commissioned in four intervals by different founders in the 17th and 28th centuries, did not form the preferred local musical campanological requirements, even after being restored at the Malta Drydocks in 1976.

During the past five months the Cathedral parish collected the handsome amount of Lm90,000 to replace the old church bells which were lowered from the Cathedral belfry on July 5 and 13. The new bells, which are decorated with a set of ornate canons bearing six cherubs and a garland of roses, are to be named Maria Absumpta, Ursula, Iosepha-Francisca, Paula and Aloysia.

Archpriest Mgr Dr Joe Vella Gauci recently took a group of 26 people to the John Taylor Bellfounders in Loughborough to see the new church bells which are expected to be hoisted in their tower after the feast of the Assumption of Our Lady (Santa Marija) which is celebrated on August 15.