From Catholic News Service

Domino founder's plan for town sparks debate

By Tom Tracy, Catholic News Service

WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. (CNS) -- A Catholic philanthropist's plans to develop a town around the new site of a Catholic university in Florida has raised concerns from critics both within and outside church circles.

But Tom Monaghan remains firm in his commitment to the project and its prospects for success.

Monaghan, who made his fortune as founder of the Domino's Pizza chain, broke ground in mid-February for Ave Maria town, a 5,000-acre, 11,000-home community to be built around Ave Maria University, which he established as an interim campus in 2003.

He founded Ave Maria College near Ann Arbor, Mich., in 1998, but later elected to move the institution to Florida, prompting a mix of praise and criticism even from his own faculty and administration. He currently is seeking board approval to move the Ave Maria School of Law to the Naples area as well.

More recently, he has faced a media backlash over his stated desire to create a family-friendly atmosphere in Ave Maria, one free of morally problematic elements such as pornography, contraceptives and abortion.

As far back as 2004, he told an audience that he and his partners would "own all commercial real estate" and thus "will be able to control what goes on there. You won't be able to buy a Playboy or Hustler magazine in Ave Maria town. We're going to control the cable television that comes in the area. ... If you go to the drugstore and you want to buy the (birth control) pill or the condoms or contraception, you won't be able to get that in Ave Maria town."

Leading the charge against Monaghan's plans is the American Civil Liberties Union.

Howard Simon, the ACLU's executive director in Florida, said that "arbitrarily discriminating" against who receives reproductive health services could lead to "a whole series of legal and constitutional problems and a lot of litigation."

In early March, Monaghan and his partner-developer, Barron Collier Cos., issued a statement clarifying his previous statements. Monaghan and Paul Marinelli, the president and CEO of Barron Collier, said that there is "a growing misperception" that Ave Maria is to be a "Catholic town, controlled by Tom Monaghan."

Although the town will reflect traditional family values and retailers will be asked to refrain from practices opposed to Catholic teachings, "no restrictions will be enforced on contraceptives or any other inventory," the statement said.

"As far as the town goes, it will end up being whatever it is, obviously, open to everybody," Monaghan told Our Sunday Visitor, a national Catholic newspaper based in Huntington, Ind. "We have had 20,000 names inquire (about the town's residential lots) from all over the country and beyond. I imagine a lot of them would be Catholics, and strong Catholics."

Some of the restrictions he seeks, Monaghan said, will be covered under lease agreements with the developer -- including prohibitions against topless bars and adult bookstores -- while others could be more informal understandings among the commercial tenants and the landowners.

But some Catholics have expressed doubt -- much of it debated on the Internet -- about the vision of Ave Maria town. While some see the project as a Catholic, pro-family utopia, others question whether the project represents a return to the "Catholic ghetto," an insulated environment that limits the kind of contact with the diversity of the world that is required for effective evangelization.

In a recent Wall Street Journal report, one alumnus of Ave Maria's law school was quoted as saying that "this town and the university in Florida is going to be a self-contained little Catholic enclave" antithetical to the law school's mission of engaging the world.

But Joseph Varacalli, professor of sociology and director of the Center for Catholic Studies at Nassau Community College on Long Island, in New York, believes such concerns about the campus and town's insularity are unfounded.

"We (Catholics) are different from, say, the Amish in that we are not retreating from the world, but rather trying to be a leaven for society," he told Our Sunday Visitor.

"If the goal is to retreat from a world, you are giving up on it," he added. "I don't see the development of the community in Naples opposed to the idea that the university and the community are there to keep the faith alive, and from that base to then go out into the world.

"It would be impossible in the modern world that it could serve as a place where Catholics could associate only with other Catholics," Varacalli added.

Monaghan said he hopes the town will open its first phase in summer 2007.

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