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[Father_Brain]

http://www.bostonphoenix.com/boston/news_features/top/features/documents/04761831.asp

Long, but well worth reading. An excerpt:

It takes courage — or recklessness, or contempt — to stand inside Boston College High School and condemn the state of Catholic education. For nearly 150 years, BC High has been a prized destination for the sons of local Catholic families; the list of notable alumni includes politicians (former state Senate president William Bulger) and intellectuals (former New York Times Book Review editor Chip McGrath), and being a "Triple Eagle" — a graduate of BC High, Boston College, and Boston College Law School — is still a potent credential in Boston’s corridors of power.

If Tom Monaghan knows this history, he doesn’t care. It’s a Saturday in March, and Monaghan — founder of Domino’s Pizza, former owner of the Detroit Tigers, and self-appointed savior of American Catholicism — is addressing an overflow crowd packed into BC High’s gymnasium for the first annual Boston Catholic Men’s Conference. Monaghan doesn’t seem like a revolutionary: his voice is gentle, his graying hair mussed, and he leans against the podium for support as he speaks. But his rhetoric is incendiary. Catholic schools are failing, Monaghan announces; on key issues (religious observance, sexual behavior, opposition to abortion), graduates of Catholic colleges and universities are actually less orthodox than their co-religionists who attend secular institutions. The problem is especially bad at elite schools, which are academically rigorous but spiritually impoverished. Yet Monaghan brings good news as well. At Ave Maria, the university he’s building in southwest Florida, things will be different. In a few years, the median SAT score will be higher than that at any other Catholic institution; even better, the dorms will be single-sex, a quarter of the classes will be taught by "wholly orthodox" priests, and students will be urged to become priests and nuns.

Bold talk — but the most dramatic part of Monaghan’s speech is yet to come. Ave Maria won’t be just a university, he continues. It will also be a new town, built from scratch, in which the wickedness of the world will be kept at bay. "We’ve already had about 3500 people inquire on our Web site about buying a home there — you know, they’re all Catholic," Monaghan says excitedly. "We’re going to control all the commercial real estate, so there’s not going to be any pornography sold in this town. We’re controlling the cable system. The pharmacies are not going to be able to sell condoms or dispense contraceptives." A private chapel will be located within walking distance of each home. At the stunning church in the center of town, Mass will be said hourly, seven days a week, from 6 a.m. on. "So," Monaghan concludes, with just a hint of understatement, "it’ll be a unique town." As he exits the stage, the applause is thunderous.

 

[Nerevar]

At Ave Maria, the university he’s building in southwest Florida, things will be different. In a few years, the median SAT score will be higher than that at any other Catholic institution; even better, the dorms will be single-sex, a quarter of the classes will be taught by "wholly orthodox" priests, and students will be urged to become priests and nuns.

:lol

good luck getting those super-smart kids to attend.

Edit: Also, the parallels to the Saudi Arabian Wahabi institutions are far too ironic.

 

[Azure Dream]

OK, that's kind of creepy.

 

[Ghost]

And people say Scientology is wierd.

 

[Doth Togo]

His ego needs to be deflated. His pizza sucks.

 

[ronito]

I can't remember the last time I ate a Domino's pizza but if this guy is really bent on crushing religious and non-religious freedoms it will be the last one I ever eat.

 

[Belfast]

So, the only food they'll serve is domino's pizza?

 

[Jonnyboy117]

The pharmacies are not going to be able to sell condoms or dispense contraceptives.

Won't be a small town for long!

 

[Dan]

As Monaghan breathes life into his new Catholic community in Florida, he’s enjoying the same good fortune that propelled him to the pinnacle of the business world. He might never have ventured into Collier County if the city of Ann Arbor, Michigan, had been more accommodating. But when he proposed building Ave Maria University in Ann Arbor Township, along with a 250-foot-crucifix bearing a 40-foot Jesus, local officials balked, leading Monaghan to look south in 2002.

Monaghan is a frequent donor to conservative Republican political figures, including Senators Sam Brownback, Tom Coburn, and Rick Santorum

For now, the entire community exists only in embryonic form. Ave Maria University, which just graduated its first class, is tucked into a cozy interim campus that blends easily into the sprawling exurb of Greater Naples; the school’s buildings were originally constructed for an assisted-living facility. Save for a few telling details — the Vatican flag flapping in the breeze overhead, an unusually high concentration of anti-abortion Florida license plates — it could be just another private community.

Wait, wait. Florida provides anti-abortion license plates? What the fuck?

Later, when I asked Fessio what Ave Maria’s legacy might be a century from now, he was slightly less guarded. "My ideal would be for the entire human race to be fully and completely Catholic, and to serve God that way," Fessio answered.

As he welcomed me into a study group he was leading on Ratzinger’s Spirit of the Liturgy, Fessio urged me to act as a dissenting voice: "Feel free to criticize him," Fessio said, "even though he is the pope." The students’ laughter was reassuring — a sign, perhaps, that their faith could comfortably coexist with the outside world. But later, when I asked two recent graduates to discuss their experience at Ave Maria, they turned to Fessio with stricken looks. He quickly explained that all interviews needed to be arranged through the school’s PR office.

Creepy and scary.