US nuns return to PHL church bells seized over 110 years ago

After more than 110 years, the bells taken to the United States from a church in Bulacan during the Filipino-American war in the 1800s, were finally returned to Philippine officials over the weekend. According to a report of Rick Ruggles on Omaha.com, the nuns of the Sisters of Mercy congregation in Omaha in the US have no idea how the church bells from the Philippines ended in their church.

Two bells, one bigger than the other, are connected by a hard block of black wood with a handle on top. The report said a placard on the block of wood said the bells were taken from a church in Meycauayan, Bulacan "after bombardment by Utah Battery March 29, 1899 by P.O. Thomas, Co. A Battalion of Engineers." When Leo Herrera-Lim, the Philippine consul general in Chicago, received the bells from the nuns over the weekend, he said only God knows the journey that the bells have made. Herrera-Lim said he would turn over the artifact to the National Museum of the Philippines in Manila and ask researchers to determine the history of the bells. He also said he would ask replicas of the bells to made for the Sisters of Mercy and the PHL Consulate in Chicago. Omaha.com also quoted him as saying he will always remember the generosity of the nuns. "The bells have taken an extraordinary journey," he said in the report. Monte Kniffen, an archivist for the Sisters of Mercy in Omaha, said he came across the artifact as he explored a box in his archives in July. The report said the box contained items from two convents in California. Kniffen said a small museum or a family might have turned over the bells to one of the convents. When the convents closed, the bells along with other items were sent to the Sisters of Mercy headquarters in Omaha. Kniffen informed the Philippine consulate in Chicago in July about the bells and received a prompt response, Omaha.com said. Philippine-American war The Philippine–American War from 1899 to 1902 is also known as the "Philippine War of Independence" or the "Philippine Insurrection." The armed conflict between Filipino revolutionaries and the US arose when the Philippines became a US colony. The war came after a series of conflicts, such as the Philippine Revolution and the Spanish-American War, as the Filipino people struggled for independence. "The Americans burned and bombed villages and about 200,000 Philippine civilians died of disease and brutality in the war," Omaha.com said. - VVP, GMA News