Reno's Bishop

Accepting the crozier (crook) of his office as spiritual shepherd, the embroidered mitre which is "a helmet of protection and salvation that the wearer may seem terrible to the opponents of truth," the two small gold & silver casks of wine and golden loaves of bread which are the offerings of the faithful to its priesthood, Dr. Thomas Kiley Gorman last week donned a pair of white kid gloves (as did Jacob who covered his hands with skins of kid), was blessed and became the first Roman Catholic Bishop of Reno, Nevada.

Least populous of States, Nevada was the last to have no Catholic diocese of its own. His Holiness Pope Pius XI gave it one last April, appointed Dr. Gorman to be Bishop. Born in Pasadena, Calif, in 1892, Dr. Gorman had taken the degree Doctor of Historical Sciences at the University of Louvain, Belgium, had been assigned to several Southern California parishes, had edited since 1926 the diocesan paper Tidings. Consecrated in St. Vibiana Cathedral in Los Angeles (he will be installed in Reno this month), he was the first local priest to be elevated to the episcopacy. To see the ceremony came thousands; assisting in it were Archbishop Edward J. Hanna of San Francisco and the Bishops of Los Angeles and San Diego, Sacramento, Salt Lake City, Denver, Tucson and Baker City (Ore.).

Newshawks soon asked Bishop Gorman the obvious question: what did he think of divorce and gambling in his see city? His sharp brown eyes gleamed, but he would make no comment. Was he a liberal? A reply came from Rev. Bernard J. Dolan, chancellor of the diocese of Los Angeles and San Diego: "If he were a liberal he would not have been consecrated Bishop! We hear voices raised all over the land in protest and horror of the licence that prevails in that State. . . . We cannot condone laxity of morals whether in the individual or the State. Laws that facilitate the evasion of one's sacred duty to God and home should find no place in civilized society. We must not, however, be unmindful that while Nevada contributes to the state of delinquency, the other States contribute the delinquents, and if barbarism prevails in Nevada today, it is because the other States have failed in their task of civilizing the barbarian whose untamed and unbridled nature seeks surcease in that Utopian Mecca of ceaseless, seething marital confusion made possible by the laws of Nevada."

Non-Catholic Reno paid practically no attention to the news that Bishop Gorman was to be installed there. Catholics were pleased, but although they are the largest denomination in Nevada (as they are throughout the Southwest except in Mormon Utah) they are not imposing in number: only 8,447 communicants. There are no Catholic officials in the city of Reno. There were none among the supporters of Nevada's six-week divorce law last March.

Merrily Reno continues to have Monday "washdays." It grants about 100 divorces a week, twice as many as under the old three-month law. Divorce-seekers may circulate at will throughout the state, but most prefer to stay in town, gamble at the Bank, New York, Wine, Rex, California and Reno Clubs. Hotels and shops formerly estimated the divorce trade to be worth $4,000,000 a year; the gambling houses now are supposed to pay State and county $50 a month for each game, and nobody knows how much this will come to, if collected. Amorous males may go to the fenced-in "Crib" guarded by three policemen, where girls are to be found at all hours. From 300 young women the "Crib" owners collect (according to Investigator Henry F. Pringle of Outlook and Independent) $2.50 a day, pay Reno only a property tax.

Is Reno's clergy organized against the new regime? Some oppose it, but hope lessly. One apologist for it is Rev. Dr. Alfred J. Case, Methodist pastor who lent his pulpit to Mayor Edward Ewing Roberts during his campaign for re-election last March. Recalling that Dr. Clarence True Wilson of the Methodist Board of Temperance, Prohibition and Public Morals had called Reno a "compound of Sodom, Gomorrah and perdition," Dr. Case said that Reno's churches were wellattended, that the community in general was suffering no bad effects.

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