Serpent in pizza king's swanky Eden

National Catholic Reporter, March 21, 2003 by Eugene Kennedy

Thomas Monaghan, the pizza capitalist, is building Ave Maria University in Naples, Fla. His $200 million pledge earned him a front-page story in The New York Times and a place on the list of the "10 top Catholics" of 2002 compiled by Inside The Vatican magazine. He ranked ninth, just ahead of Bishop Stanislaw Dziwisc, who was described as Pope "John Paul's most important day-to-day assistant."

Monaghan, the magazine said, deserves recognition for "giving his fortune away to serve the faith." He plans nothing less than a new Eden for Catholic education, whose present state he bewails, the Times reported, claiming that at "some Catholic universities, students graduate with their religious faith more shaky than when they arrive."

In this new Garden of Eden, there will be, as in Genesis, a Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, whose fruit the students will be forbidden to eat. What the former Dominoes pizza magnate apparently regards as temptations, if not occasions of sin, will be ruled out. It will have no coed dorms and no gay-support groups, and while attending Mass will not be required, "Mr. Monaghan expects most students to go regularly."

Ave Maria University, as it is named, is already functioning in temporary quarters and, as Ave Maria Institute, offers courses that tell us more about life in Eden II. These include "Mother Teresa's Catechism," "Sacred Music for the Soul" and "Catholicism in Tudor England." Well, you get the idea.

The courses and conditions of life on this campus will, according to Monaghan, be "unabashedly Catholic." This will appeal, he says to 10 percent of Catholics, 75 percent of whom, he charges, "don't practice their faith right now."

That such sweeping and unsupported assertions arise from the literary genre of retail pizza should neither surprise nor upset us. Nor can anybody doubt Monaghan's sincerity or his often-expressed gratitude for the care he received at the hands of the Sisters of St. Joseph after his father died.

Still, what does he mean by implying that a form of faith is "abashedly" Catholic? "Abash" is defined as "to make ashamed or uneasy" or "to disconcert." It comes from a Latin word that means "to gape" or "to yawn." He is not against getting people to "gape" at his new Eden where there will be zero tolerance for yawning in such classes such as Catholicism in Tudor England.

It is, however, good Catholic sense to realize that we lost our lease on Eden a long time ago and this effort to build a new one couldn't succeed even in an old movie directed by Frank Capra--"Mr. Monaghan Goes to Naples."

There, at its very center, Monaghan can be seen munching on an apple with the real estate developer who is playing the part once reserved for the serpent. The latter, as Jean Kerr once observed, gets "the best lines."

And he still has them. Land for Ave Maria was donated by the real estate developer Barron Collier Companies, which views the university "as an attractive amenity for the town" it is planning. "While some developers have built elementary schools to attract young parents," the Times reported, "Ave Maria seems to be the first American university to be built in tandem with a town."

The phrase "attractive amenity," places Monaghan's dream into proper perspective in Naples, second only to Las Vegas as the fastest growing metropolitan area in the United States, according to American Demographics magazine. And while he will use his half for the school, Monaghan is in a deal to split the profits from this Eden of Boom Town and Catholic Gown with the developers.

What is more abashing: a Catholic school that really thinks it is Eden and, like any swanky subdivision, rules out gay Catholics who might show up looking for some spiritual support, or the lack of interest by either developer or pizza king in nearby Immokalee, "a struggling town with many of the region's poorest field hands"? Not an attractive amenity, I guess, but still the farm workers are being served by hardworking nuns, priests and Catholic volunteers who don't get much publicity and are always in need of funds.

Unabashed Catholicism is found, Jesus said, wherever the lame walk, the deaf hear, and the poor have the gospel preached to them. Where do you suppose that might be, in the new Eden of Ave Maria or in the old farm center of Immokalee?

Eugene Kennedy, a longtime observer of the Roman Catholic church, is professor emeritus of psychology at Loyola University in Chicago and author of the recent book The Unhealed Wound: The Church and Human Sexuality, published by St. Martin's Press.