LAUGHLIN, Nev. _ Charlie Urnick stands in a backstage hallway at Don's Celebrity Theater, tucked inside the thrumming Riverside Resort Hotel and Casino. Smiling, shaking hands with well-wishers, he awaits the evening's events with the knowing calm of a veteran headliner.
But inside this brightly lit corridor, where musicians and magicians have signed autographs and greeted fans, Urnick offers something truly remarkable.
He hears confessions.
He's the administrator at St. John the Baptist Catholic Church, which sits atop a treeless hill some five miles away. But the 71-year-old Urnick is better known to parishioners and just about everyone else around this casino river town simply as Father Charlie.
After a deacon helps him slip into his flowing satin vestments, he quietly listens to the ways his fellow Catholics have gone astray.
One by one, the believers wait outside for their turn. There's no confessional booth, and priest and penitent face each other on folding chairs. They are eye to eye, but Father Charlie puts them at ease.
"Painless," says one confessor, crossing herself as she leaves the hallway.
On this late-autumn Saturday afternoon, Father Charlie is continuing a 27-year tradition that's aptly suited to Laughlin.
He celebrates Mass inside a casino.
Yes, you read that right.
Forget bingo. We're in the realm of hard-line games of chance. After hearing confessions, Father Charlie leads a small procession into the 700-seat theater with its bordello-red wallpaper, not far from the cartoonish squawks of slot machines.
For the next hour, he preaches in a place where, for some, the real God is the almighty dollar. He faces his congregation from a floor-level pulpit, in front of a stage and its drum set looming in the darkness.
Hours later, a Karen Carpenter impersonator will take this same stage. For now, behind Father Charlie stands a slender pole with a crucifix mounted on top.
Still, distractions abound in a place more associated with the Seven Deadly Sins than 14 Stations of the Cross. Sharing the venue with acts that appear during the rest of the week, Father Charlie has given Holy Communion before a huge backdrop of a Skyy vodka bottle and images of sultry Budweiser girls and Elvis, prompting him to jokingly remind the faithful they're praying to God the King, and not the King.
Father Charlie has no problem with any of it. In fact, he insists that this implausible place is precisely where he should be.
"The pope says priests should be where the people are," he said says. "There are 11 casinos in Laughlin, so this is where we have taken our services. And to those who might say that God could not possibly be here, I say he is."
The theater's first dozen rows feature long tables where parishioners, some dressed in shorts and flip-flops, consult hymnals and church bulletins. One ponytailed man shoves a betting form into his pocket just as services begin.
As the collection basket passes, some toss in casino chips and slot machine receipts, which Father Charlie gladly accepts. He's even designed his own souvenir chip the parish sells for fundraising. Some refer to him as the "chip monk."
"Pray with us," the chip reads, bearing a picture of the Riverside casino and Mass hours. "It's a sure bet."
The chips _ along with candles, medals and other items you'd find in religious bookstore _ are arranged for sale at a long table-bar where workers sell alcoholic drinks at other events. As the service ends, Father Charlie adds an encouragement not heard at other churches.
"Don't forget to visit the bar on the way out," he urges.
A retiree then slides into his electric wheelchair and heads for the door.
"It's off to the casino," he says. "Let's hope I don't lose the farm."
