Can someone tell me whether this is true or made up?

[fpb]

From R.J.Neuhaus' column in FIRST THINGS magazine:

A reader tells me that there are more Catholic churches in Las Vegas than casinos. When the offering is received at Mass, it is common for people to put casino chips rather than cash in the baskets. The several parishes send the collected chips to a neighboring Franciscan Monastery, where they are sorted and then cashed in at the casinos they came from. This weekly task is undertaken by those who are called the chip monks.

Comments

Re: Pedantry time - sorry

[bufo-viridis.livejournal.com]

Interesting. Always thought that "friar" was a kind of, a bit informal, way of calling a monk. We call them all monks, acknowledgins the differences in the order rules.
BTW, Thomas Merton was a Trappist, wasn't he? He seemed to me as a person with a sense of humour, actually.