Ancient voices
Since time immemorial, bells have played a vital role in Catholic liturgy. This can be seen in the many different ways of ringing them: to express feelings of joy and rejoicing, of sadness and meditation, and even of alarm in the event of emergencies or disasters.
Practically all the churches in Yucatan have bells, some of them hundreds of years old, and all of them an invaluable part of the religious, historical and cultural heritage of their communities.
According to Juan Francisco Peón Ancona, chronicler of the city of Merida, the oldest bell for which records exist dates from 1591, and was donated to the city’s Convent of Conceptionist Nuns by the governor Antonio de Vozmediano. This historic piece was removed from its original location around 1915, when the convent church was seized. Fortunately, a few decades ago it was recovered and returned to the Nuns’ Church by an entrepreneur named Alfonso Martín. Today the bell can be seen in the gardens of the church annexe, on 64th Street between 61st and 63rd in the city center.
The north tower of the Cathedral houses ten working bells, manufactured between the 17th and 20th centuries. The oldest, dating from 1618, is dedicated to the Virgin Mary and St. Ildefonso, and was acquired thanks to the efforts of Dr. Pedro Sánchez de Aguilar, a priest from Valladolid, Yucatan. On a trip to Spain as an episcopal representative to the king, he secured a donation of 24,000 ducats for the acquisition of bells and sacred ornaments.
In 1980, at the behest of the then archbishop Manuel Castro Ruiz, new bells were acquired for the Cathedral, including the largest, dedicated to the Virgin of Guadalupe, the Angelus, and bells dedicated to St. Barnabas, St. Joseph and St. Ildefonso. All these pieces were cast by master bell-makers from the state of Hidalgo, and are normally used to call the faithful to religious services in the Cathedral. The Cathedral bell tower is not open to the general public.
Four more bells, now not in use, are displayed in the garden in front of the north side entrance. The most impressive is an older largest bell, from 1728, dedicated to St. John the Baptist. Finally, in the inner patio of the Archdiocesan offices there are two more, one of which is called the canons’ bell, located on the roof of the Chapterhouse, and used to call members of the Cathedral’s Metropolitan Chapter to their sessions.