Las Vegas Pastor Simply Lets Chips Fall Where They May

Visitors to the Shrine of the Most Holy Redeemer often make the same request of the priest: “Father, will you pray for me to win?”

“I tell them if it was that easy, do they think we’d still have a debt on this place? I believe in the power of prayer, but even that power has its limits,” said Father Patrick Leary, rector of the $3.5-million, 2,200-seat Roman Catholic church at the south end of the Las Vegas Strip.

The shrine was built nearly two years ago to serve many of the 29 million people a year who visit Las Vegas from around the world, most of them bent on testing the whims of Lady Luck.

Four of the world’s largest hotel-casinos--the MGM Grand, Luxor, Excalibur and Tropicana--are just a block away.

In the warmly lit sanctuary, where elegant bronze statues of the Nativity, the Last Supper and crucifixion line the walls, gambling reaches right down to the pews: Worshipers are invited to put casino chips in the collection plate.

“Now and then we’ll find a $500 chip in one of the plates,” Leary said in a soft Irish brogue.

Chips can also be used for currency at the gift shop, where a $5 donation to the building fund can get you a souvenir gaming chip with a likeness of Jesus Christ.

A church worker is designated to make a run every few weeks, cashing in the collection-plate chips at the casinos.

A Franciscan friar who once held that job, Andre Le May, was dubbed “the chip monk.” When casino chips piled up at the shrine, he would exchange his brown habit for jeans and a T-shirt, and make the rounds at casino cages.

(Le May has since built a sideline business out of making chocolate candy, and now friends call him “the chocolate chip monk.”)

The shrine draws thousands of worshipers a week, 80% of them tourists. Pat Downey and his wife, Stella, of Pasadena, were staying at the nearby Luxor hotel one recent day and said they found the church a convenient place for Mass.

“You can’t gamble all day long,” Downey said. “This is a nice change. Religion is a part of our life. Just because you’re in Las Vegas, you don’t have to give that up.”

Asked if he ever thought of praying for a good roll of the dice, John Kress of Saskatchewan, Canada, said: “Anyone who thinks that is here for the wrong reasons.”

Down the Strip, the Guardian Angel Cathedral, another Roman Catholic church, has served worshipers for decades. But with major resorts opening on the south end of the Strip, the Catholic Diocese decided it was time to build a church closer to the action.

“People ask why we built the shrine so close to the Strip,” Leary said. “Why not? This is where the people are.”