An Italian parish priest has been fined EUR 2,000 for ringing his church bells at banned volumes and all day long, driving local residents round the bend.

Ever since Don Leonardo Guerri took over as the parish priest at the church of Santa Maria in Coverciano in the Italian city of Florence, the church bells have been ringing incessantly.

Residents have been complaining that the bells are struck up to 200 times a day from 8am to 9pm – even on a Sunday – at volumes exceeding the legal decibel limit and sometimes nonstop for a whole minute, thereby contravening a 2014 decree signed by Cardinal Giuseppe Betori regulating the chiming of church bells throughout the diocese to “avoid putting a strain on the sense of Christian devotion”.

The residents of the Coverciano neighbourhood have complained directly to Don Leonardo, but their complaints have fallen on deaf ears.

Don Leonardo apparently showed no Christian humility over the dispute, even joking that he was not afraid of conflict because his surname is ‘Guerri’, which is similar to the Italian word for ‘war’.

However, after four years of petitions and complaints from some 500 local families, the parish priest appears to have lost his war, with the Regional Authority for Environmental Protection (ARPAT) siding in the former’s favour.

ARPAT looked at the residents’ complaints, took acoustic measurements, and decided that the ringing was, indeed, far too loud and excessive.

The authority has now ruled that the bells may only chime to call the faithful to mass and at 6pm. And Don Leonardo was also handed an EUR-2,000 (GBP-1,664) fine.