yes he was planning to build his own town somewhere in florida.
The Domino's Pizza founder and anti-choice crusader, Thomas S. Monaghan, wants to build a little Catholic theocracy just outside Naples, Florida, where he controls the commercial real estate. Lots of pizza; no condoms, porn or abortions
http://www-cgi.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0508/21/sun.02.html
SUSAN CANDIOTTI, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice over): Here in the tomato fields of Collier County, Florida. Tom Monaghan hopes to find a home for his conservative catholic university and build a new town for like-minded Catholics.
Is this your dream?
TOM MONAGHAN: Yes. I've been this about this for many, many years.
CANDIOTTI: His dream is a university and a town he's calling Ave Maria. Latin for hail Mary. What kind of Catholic would want to live in this town?
MONAGHAN: I think a strong Catholic where faith means a lot to them. There will be masses available all day long. Confession available all day long.
CANDIOTTI: On the interim campus in Naples, Florida, some students applaud Monaghan's vision.
KRISTEN HARR, STUDENT, AVE MARIA UNIVERSITY: It's very exciting to think about having a town where we know that the morals on the television will be according to Christian values and the stores will sell things according to Christian values.
CANDIOTTI: In Ave Maria, Monaghan would like to ban the sale of contraceptives, condemned by the church and routinely ignored by the Catholics.
MONAGHAN: We would do what we could to prohibit merchants from doing that, because we then own all the commercial real estate, we would be able to do that.
CANDIOTTI: Ave Maria's developers admit it's an unusual approach.
BLAKE GABLE, BARON COLLIER COMPANIES: This is one of those items that we know it's important to Tom. We've broached the idea with retailers and candidly this is something they've never been asked to do before.
CANDIOTTI: 11,000 homes are expected to go up on the 5,000 acres; we are talking about 500 miles of pipes and another couple hundred miles of sidewalks and trails, with the church being the main focus, standing about 30 feet taller than any other building. Around the church, shops and homes. For Monaghan the university will be the big draw.
MONAGHAN: We're trying to create people that are going to change the world. That's exactly what we're trying to do with Ave Maria is to change the world.
CANDIOTTI: In Monaghan's view, most Catholic universities have become too liberal.
MONAGHAN: We won't give honorary degrees. We won't have a particular play -- I won't mention the name of it, shown on many Catholic universities?
CANDIOTTI: That would be the vagina monologues. And a gay film festival?
MONAGHAN: That won't happen here.
PROF. MARIA ROCA, FLORIDA GULF COAST UNIV: UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: My beliefs are very different than Mr. Monaghan's are.
CANDIOTTI: Some Catholics question those kinds of restrictions.
ROCA: Even though I'm a divot Catholic. I think there are a lot of other possibilities we should be teaching at the university level. Are skills to ask questions, really good questions, and tough questions and not to accept blindly that there is one truth?
CANDIOTTI: Monaghan grew up in an orphanage and was kicked out of a seminary over a pillow fight. A life time later the Domino's Pizza mega millionaire who never finished college is pouring $200 million of his fortune into the university and the town.
MONAGHAN: Didn't do anything to have 20,000 pizza shops and be worth $30 billion. You can't take it with you.
CANDIOTTI: What are we looking at here?
MONAGHAN: Right now we walked into the front door of the church.
CANDIOTTI: Monaghan hopes to turn out Catholic educators who he says will take a less watered down version of the Catholic faith. He prefers a faculty that's mostly Catholic, and in his words, not mediocre. How do you define a mediocre Catholic?
MONAGHAN: A cafeteria Catholic that says they are Catholic who go to church on Easter and Palm Sunday, and probably oftentimes are pro-abortion.
CANDIOTTI: Some are uneasy with Monaghan's approach.
PETER STEINFELS, FORDHAM UNIVERSITY: My concern is that they criticize all the other models of going about this as though they were the only ones that met the test of genuine religious Catholic commitment and orthodoxy, and I think that's a grave error and a disservice to other people in Catholic higher education.
CANDIOTTI: Monaghan sees it more simply.
MONAGHAN: The biggest impact I can have for what I want to do, the results I want to have with what God's given me, and that is to help as many people as possible get to heaven. That's the best way I know how to do it.
CANDIOTTI: And Ave Maria in Monaghan's view could be heaven's stepping-stone. Susan Candiotti, on the future's site of Ave Maria, Florida.
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