what happens in vegas ...

By Diogenes ( articles ) | May 03, 2007

... stays in Vegas. Right, Eminence? An AP headline reads Catholic Cardinals Meet in Las Vegas for Fundraiser. Just the right tone of prayerful recollection. The desert experience.

LAS VEGAS -- Catholic Church leaders gathered in Las Vegas on Friday for an annual mass and fundraiser to benefit Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C.

[chop]

Five of the seven cardinals currently serving as archbishops of U.S. dioceses were scheduled to attend the events, including Cardinals Edward Egan of New York, Roger Mahony of Los Angeles, Sean O'Malley of Boston, Adam Maida of Detroit and Justin Rigali of Philadelphia.

The mass was to be followed by a fundraiser at the Four Seasons Hotel, where the Catholic Charities of Southern Nevada would be honored and awarded $10,000. The university says the annual event has raised more than $21 million.

Several years ago already, in an essay in Crisis, Prof. Ralph McInerny deplored the USCCB's practice of gathering in flashy hotels. There are plenty of monasteries with plenty of empty rooms, he pointed out. And the photos of the bishops at make-shift matins in a basement conference room speak louder than any document about which conveniences they regard as indispensable and which not. In the present case, thankfully, the Mass was not held at a hotel; only the squeeze play took place there. But even the cocktail waitresses at the Four Seasons Las Vegas will be able to intuit something out of whack in that particular conjunction of red silk and raised funds.

If no abbey were available, why not Chuck E. Cheese?