ARTICLES
June 2004 ARTICLES
Contents © 2004
by Jim Holman.
All rights reserved.
Vote for This, or Else
Indian Gambling Initiative Inspires Moral Questions
BY KIRK KRAMER
About half of the 107 federally recognized Indian tribes in California, like many other tribal governments across the country, operate casinos in the hope that gambling dollars will bring prosperity and a better life to the Native American people. But one church leader in Oklahoma, the state with the highest Indian population in the U.S., has his doubts.
"Casinos will lead the Indians down another Trail of Tears," said Dom Philip Anderson, prior of a Benedictine monastery in the diocese of Tulsa. Clear Creek Priory is located in the middle of the Cherokee Nation, 25 miles from the old Cherokee capital of Tahlequah. The monastery sits at the confluence of Clear Creek and Cold Springs, the location until recent decades of Cold Springs Missionary Baptist Church, a Protestant mission that held services in their tribal language for the Cherokees of the district.
"Casino gambling is going to bring sad things to the Indians," said Father Anderson. "From a moral standpoint, gambling organized on a large scale is going to bring with it more evil than whatever good they get out of it. It's obvious that organized gambling is not part of the native genius of these people. It's an artificial culture imposed on their tradition. The Indians should do something along the lines of their authentic traditions, which are an organic development [from their culture] -- whereas this is a way to make quick money that's probably harming them."
The issue of Indian gaming has been very much in the public eye in California in recent weeks, because of a ballot initiative requiring the tribal casinos to increase to 25 percent the share of their revenues which go to the state. If just one of the 54 tribal-owned gambling houses declines to increase its payments to the state government, slot machine gambling would no longer be limited to the Indian casinos. "Eleven card rooms and five racetracks would win the right to divide 30,000 of the devices," according to an April 15 report in the Los Angeles Times. In April, proponents of the initiative -- who include pornographer Larry Flynt and abortionist Edward Allred -- submitted 1.1 million signatures to the secretary of state. If the initiative is certified, it will be submitted to California voters in November.
Chuck Wilson, a canonist with the St Joseph Foundation in San Antonio, Texas, which deals with matters of church law, was skeptical when asked about the initiative. "As I glanced over it, it sounded sort of extortionate -- vote for this or else," he said.
For Catholics, the initiative -- and the casinos it would affect -- raise larger questions of morality. One California priest, a diocesan official, spoke to me on condition of anonymity. "The Catechism of the Catholic Church says, in section 2413, 'games of chance or wagers are not in themselves contrary to justice.' However, in the same paragraph the Catechism clarifies, 'the passion for gambling risks becoming an enslavement.'
"Thus from the point of view of Catholic moral principles," said the priest, "gambling becomes problematic when it enslaves one, or when one becomes addicted to it. In living as Christ's disciples, we accept Christ's invitation to follow Him, and thus to do everything for the greater honor and glory of God. If gambling is done in moderation, and as a way to give honor and glory to God by being with friends, or for a little recreation, I suppose it could be considered an acceptable form of recreation. Unfortunately, too often, it seems to me that people with addictive personalities gamble, and they too easily become enslaved."
Bishop Edward Slattery of Tulsa, Oklahoma, shares those reservations about gambling in general. "I'm against the lottery because it's based on an unrealistic hope -- to get rich quick without having to work for a living," said Bishop Slattery. "Is it a good thing to become a multi-millionaire? Gambling feeds into the worst instincts of American culture, to get rich quick. It promotes that desire, which is not a good idea. Gambling can encourage the sin of greed, or avarice. It can interfere with a workingman's ability to pay his bills and take care of his family. In itself, provided it's for recreation, it's not evil. But it's become more than a recreation. It's a business, and to that extent, it's not a good idea."
The bishop, a priest of the archdiocese of Chicago before his 1994 episcopal consecration, made some distinctions in speaking of bingo, often identified in the United States as the Fifth Mark of the Church.
"Bingo falls more into the category of recreation," he said. "You spend 50 cents, and maybe win $5 or $10. In Illinois, bingo pays the bills [of many parishes]. But promoting gambling is not good public relations for the Church. Several years ago the cardinal cracked down on it. I remember the headline in the papers: 'Bernardin Bashes Bingo.'"
A church official in another state with a large Indian population said that bingo still pays the bills for some parishes there. Timoteo Lujan, a deacon and the chancellor of the diocese of Gallup, New Mexico, is also administrative aide to Bishop Donald Pelotte there, a Native American. The Navajo Reservation is completely within the confines of the diocese of Gallup. Only two of the seven tribes in the diocese have casinos. The Navajos do not.
"Parishes on the Navajo Reservation depend on bingo to continue their social outreach," said Lujan. "They provide alcohol rehabilitation, soup kitchens, clothing, assistance with utilities, a lot of outreach to the sick and elderly."
But casinos in the eastern part of the diocese are drawing bingo players from the parishes, thus reducing revenues in those parishes.
"In very few cases does bingo run by the Church ruin people's lives or devastate communities and families, because it's small time stuff," Lujan said. "Apart from the question of income taken away from the bingo games, I would say the negative effects of Indian casino gambling far outweigh the positives, from a Catholic social justice point of view. It introduces elements which are destructive of family and culture -- prostitution, more domestic violence -- which is a big problem in this part of the world -- more alcoholism and drunk driving.
"Every tribe that has gambling does different things with their money. The question to ask is, who benefits? From tribe to tribe it differs. Some are just paying stockholders. Others put it back into the tribe. But even in the latter case, the benefits don't outweigh the liabilities. One of Bishop Pelotte's primary focuses has been to inculturate Roman Catholicism into Native American culture, so that in the context of the Native American culture, the Faith can be found. There's been a tension between traditional tribal leaders and management tribal leaders. The issue is the protection of culture. Traditional leaders have been very concerned about the effect casino gambling will have on [tribal] culture. Casinos introduce poverty and domestic violence and so many things that are destructive of culture."
Monsignor Paul Lenz, long-time director of the Bureau of Catholic Indian Missions, has devoted his priestly life to working for the betterment of America's native peoples. The bureau, headquartered four blocks from the White House in Washington, D.C., is the agency established 100 years ago by the bishops of the United States to oversee the Church's work among Indians. Monsignor Lenz crisscrosses the country every year, visiting reservations, Indian schools, and churches with substantial numbers of Indian parishioners.
Monsignor Lenz, known among D.C. Catholics for the holiness of his life and staunch orthodoxy, has a substantially different take on the effects of casinos among Native Americans. "There may be problems [associated with the casinos], but they are completely offset because of the good to the people. [Because of the casinos] the Indians are able to help themselves. The tribes will hire every one of their people to work in the casinos. This lets them work, get new houses, get new pick-ups instead of worrying how to afford a new tire.
"I see no problem because I've seen the wonderful things that happen because of money from the casinos. Hospitals, schools, churches, meals on wheels, all benefit. An awful lot of good has come from them. I'm thinking of a Catholic school, of an Indian parish, that could not afford to stay open without the casinos. I feel certain the Catechism would back me up on what I've said."
Monsignor Lenz is a staunch advocate of the Indian nations' independence from local and state interference. "The basic idea is that the Indian tribes are sovereign nations, nations in themselves," he said. "They should not be subject to state laws on their own property. Their land is sovereign land. They should be able to do what they want on their own land. Casino money helps them get their own land back, because another benefit has been that many Indians themselves have gone to law school. They will win their own land back taken from them by broken treaties.
"I met a lady on a plane who said, surely you wouldn't visit casinos. I told her I've been in every one of them. They have done so much good for the Indian people."