Parishioners united in call to save bells of St. Mary’s

A listening session at Holy Cross Chapel in Belgium last Sunday morning about what to do with the bells of shuttered St. Mary’s Catholic Church in Lake Church revealed more issues than for whom they will toll.

When longtime missionary Father James Weyker floated an idea of sending the church’s three bells to Tanzania where he ran a church for years, it touched off a firestorm of reaction from passionate parish members who never had closure since St. Mary’s last Mass in 2018.

Parish member Bob Hubing started the Bells of St. Mary’s Committee to save the bells. So many parishioners felt the same way that the church thought there was a need to hear from its members, hence the listening session.

While the vast majority of the roughly 60 parishioners, most middle-aged or older, voiced support that at least one of the bells — if not all three, plus the one in the basement that was for the school that closed years ago — should be put in a memorial in the St. Mary’s Lake Church Cemetery next to the church, other issues such as communication and a proper farewell to the old church were brought to light.

Hubing cited a division in the church and said “just to talk about the bells will not do it justice” and apologized to Weyker for making him feel bad.

“If it wasn’t for him we would not be here today,” he said.

Hubing said the committee was scheduled to meet Wednesday to go over a proposal for the bells. One of the highlights is keeping all four bells in Lake Church in a memorial in the cemetery.

“Them bells were together for 130-some years. Doggone it, they ought to stay together now,” he said.

Other elements include Divine Savior Parish paying for taking down the bells, estimated to be about $8,000, and to do something for Weyker.

Many voiced similar opinions. Some said their ancestors attended the church and are buried there.

Bridget Hubing, Bob’s daughter, said she used to live a half mile from the church and later studied human rights at Notre Dame and spent time in Tanzania and Zimbabwe.

“The issue that we have here is that these bells have so much history and there are so many people hurting right now,” she said. “They should be in our own cemetery forever.”

One member even began to cry after saying the bells belong here.

Kevin Wester, who’s not a parish member but said he has close personal ties to the church and who has led four church closings — “it’s like a death,” he said — suggesting that the final Mass at St. Mary’s could have been handled better.

“I feel like perhaps it wasn’t done as respectfully or perhaps with enough adieu to help people through the grief process,” he said.

Wester was living in Spain at the time and read about the Mass in the Ozaukee Press.

“It killed me not to be there,” he said. “And the feeling was, a morning Mass?”

Other former members who moved away said through social media that they would have come back, he said.

“I felt like it was a treasured family member who died and we really didn’t have a funeral celebration,” he said.

Wester also mentioned a lack of communication about items in the church being removed.

He said he attended the Save the Bells Committee and initially thought one bell should be kept here. But after the meeting, he said he realized they meant so much to so many people that they all should stay.

“Even though the funeral didn’t happen right and the burial’s over, I think there is time to bring healing,” Wester said.

Dorothy Weyker said the bells are just about all that’s left of St. Mary’s.

“Since they took our church away, now we have four unhappy churches in Belgium. The only thing they left us was our bells. That’s it. Please keep our bells. They belong in the cemetery and that’s it.”

Jim Kretz, a member of the Parish Council and liaison to the Finance Committee, said there never was a thought of selling the bells and making some money.

“When we found out community members wanted them, we were of the thought that yes, some bells should stay,” he said.

One of the reasons a few parishes closed, he said, was because of financial instability. Now, the new parish is staying afloat and meeting expenses “and that’s about where we’re at.

“We don’t know where the money could come from. We’re in favor of saving the bells 100%. That’s something we would have to explore.

One member suggested some of the money from the church’s sale could be earmarked for a memorial in the cemetery.

Parish member Don Feyereisen said since the Archdioceses mandate is to focus on the church’s mission more than the maintenance, he suggested the money be appropriated to that.

After about an hour, Father Gideon Buya said “no one has a monopoly over wonderful ideas and it’s wonderful to hear the different opinions of the community.

“We need to come together as one family, one community,” he said, “because that is who we are.”

He said the church will pray and discern about the issue and make the best decision for Lake Church and Divine Savior.