Knights of Columbus 4th Degree Bishop Conaty Assembly 395 are organizing a special guest presentation on August 1st, 2024, at St. Joseph’s Parish Center at 7pm.

 Professor James L. Nolan Jr, Washington Gladden 1859 Professor of Sociology at Williams College will present a special project by the St. Kateri Institute to restore the bell at the Nagasaki Cathedral in Japan.

 On August 9, 1945 the largest Catholic Cathedral in East Asia was destroyed by the Fat Man atomic bomb. The original church had two bell towers. The bell from the right tower was recovered from the ruins and reinstalled in the new church that was built after the war. All these years later, the left tower has remained empty. The St. Kateri Institute is honored to be part of a project to make and give to the Nagasaki Catholics a new bell for the left tower. We are working with a foundry in St. Louis to make the new bell, which will look much like the original.