Column One: This Catholic priest celebrates Mass in a casino. He calls prayer a 'sure bet'
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.
Father Charlie Urnick celebrates Mass at Don’s Celebrity Theater in Laughlin. The 71-year-old Urnick is better known around this casino river town simply as Father Charlie. 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.
He loves the sunshine and mix of colorful snowbirds and locals, a place where he can play the penny slots to relax after a long day of being a priest. While he one day wants to go to heaven, he says, Laughlin will do just fine for now, thank you. He’s a huge fan of magic and drives regularly to Las Vegas, where he’s seen more than 350 magicians perform, some of whom refer to him as “Charlie the Chaplain.” He insists his introduction to David Copperfield was “better than meeting the pope.
His sermons — compiled into three self-published books with such titles as “Live! Love! Laugh! Laughlin!” — are also spiced with jokes he gleans from the internet. On Father’s Day, for example, Father Charlie said: “My father only hit me once — but it was with a Volvo.” It got the laugh but then evolved into a meditation on the role of God as a loving father.
For years, before he was assigned here, Father Charlie made annual pilgrimages from New Jersey, his mother in tow, as a guest pastor in Laughlin. Mary would attend a service and then spend the rest of the time working the slot machines.Mary died in 2006, two years before Father Charlie moved here full time, and he received hundreds of sympathy cards.
Mass at St. John the Baptist Catholic Church in Laughlin. Each weekend now features two church Masses and three inside the casino — one on Saturday and two on Sunday.A few months ago, Father Charlie was visiting Ely in northern Nevada on church business. He stayed at a casino hotel and played penny slots. During the night, he suffered a stroke, which severely affected his eyesight.
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