Religion: Bingo Banned

In many a U. S. Catholic diocese during the past few years the simple gambling game of bingo (or beano, or keno) has served as a prime money-raiser, just as in U. S. cinemas a similar pastime, screeno, fills houses no matter how bad the bill. Though in Grand Rapids, Mich, a woman was arrested for sponsoring beano games last year (TIME, Nov. 25, 1935), elsewhere officials have winked at the game if it violated antigambling statutes. The Catholic Bishop of Albany, N. Y., Most Reverend Edmund F. Gibbons, made news last week by becoming the first prelate to forbid such gambling on Catholic property. Wrote he of the game, in which anything from $1 up may be won by filling five numbered squares in a row with beans as the numbers are drawn and called by the banker: “The game of bingo in this diocese has ceased to be a harmless pastime. Whatever financial profits it may yield and whatever may be said in extenuation of it as a diversion, it cannot escape severe censure as outright gambling on a large scale. It is growing daily. The stakes are mounting higher and the gambling fever is rising with them. … It is scandalizing the faithful and bringing contempt on religion.”