Recall the story of Fr. James Aquino, the priest of the Worcester, Mass., diocese was just removed from ministry by his bishop, a year after he was arrested in an adult bookstore in Las Vegas, when police say they observed engaging in “inappropriate activity” with another man.
And who was Aquino vacationing with at the time? His friend Msgr. Louis Piermarini. That information makes this story all the more interesting. Apparently, the monsignor caused an uproar at Aquino’s parish because he was playing Bingo there and winning regularly while using a machine that many people thought gave him an unfair advantage.
For those ignorant louts not tuned in to pop culture, the Bingo Brain is a pricey, book-sized computer that contains a screen and a keyboard, and allows its user to keep track of a large number of bingo cards simultaneously by feeding the number that’s called out into the computer. This is an advantage in bingo, in which people typically play multiple cards at once but must make sure they mark off each number as it’s called out.
The problem, according to some disgruntled players, is that the man with the Bingo Brain seems to win a lot. Another problem, according to me, is that the man with the Bingo Brain is Monsignor Louis P. Piermarini, director of religious education for the Roman Catholic Diocese of Worcester.
