There’s a place in Florida that’s being built with the money you may have paid for a pizza that was once delivered to your house. Not the tip, the money for the pizza.
This place in Florida is the state’s newest city, Ave Maria, which Tom Monaghan is building on 5,000 acres in a former tomato field on the edge of the Everglades northeast of Naples, a few miles from Immokalee. He hopes the city, which emphasizes family values, will eventually have 30,000 residents.
You may not recognize the name of this man who has been dubbed the ‘Pizza Pope’ by the British press. But he will recognize what made him famous: Domino’s Pizza. And, outside of Rome, it would be hard to find a more devout Catholic. Some would say ‘rabid’ or ‘fanatic’, but that’s getting ahead of the story.
Tom Monaghan’s story is a typical Horatio Alger story:
- The father died of ulcers at 29 when Tom was 4.
- His mother put him in a Michigan orphanage run by Polish Catholic nuns, where his devotion to Catholicism became an obsession.
- As a high school freshman, he decided to become a priest, but a year later he was expelled from the seminary for, among other things, pillow fighting.
- Back in public high school, he graduated 44th out of a class of 44. But his yearbook photo has this caption: ‘The more I try to be good, the worse I get; but I can still do something sensational.
- He dreamed of being an architect like his idol, Frank Lloyd Wright, but poor grades and lack of money ruled him out.
- So in 1956 he joined the Marine Corps, served three years, and hitchhiked from San Diego to Ypsilanti, MI, with only $15 in his pocket.
- Six times he enrolled in college, only to become no more than a freshman.
- In 1960, when he was 23, he and his brother borrowed $900 and bought their first pizzeria in Ypsilanti, near the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, a hive of pizza lovers. At first, he could choose the kitchen at home: pizza, pizza or pizza. Extras were added later.
- And yes, in that first year, he delivered his own pizzas. In fact, he met his wife while she was delivering a pizza.
And as they say, the rest is history. As Domino’s grew, so did Monaghan’s riches, despite many obstacles. “I don’t think anyone in business has had a harder time than I have,” she recalls now. ‘My faith sustained me.’
And he played the role of a rich man. I ‘overindulged’ in buying mundane things, he says. He began by purchasing it in 1983 from the Detroit Tigers baseball team. The team won the World Series the following year, prompting the publication of his 1986 autobiography “Pizza Tiger.” He also bought Frank Lloyd Wright collections of cars and buildings.
It was then that he became very active in Catholic education, including pro-life causes that picketed his Ann Arbor stores, and he decided that the reason God put him on Earth was to get people to Heaven. . He sold the Tigers. And finally, in 1998, he sold Domino’s for a billion dollars.
Since then, his outspoken views have dogged his proselytizing efforts. He has become a lightning rod for all sorts of controversies, including pro-life causes and opposition to homosexuality. Outwardly, he doesn’t seem to mind.
What’s more, his Ave Maria project has not escaped controversy. What sparked the controversy here were his early declarations that ‘there will be no pornographic television in Ave Maria Town’ and (to paraphrase) there will be no contraceptives or adult magazines in pharmacies either. He had to dodge those statements and finally admitted that such products will not be banned.
So what led him to establish not only a pro-life community near Naples, but also the first Catholic university built in the United States in 50 years, one that he hopes will one day rival Notre Dame?
In short, Ann Arbor politicians rejected his plans to build the university there. Rural Collier County, with a population that was more conservative and more willing to accept his views on the purpose of life (he hoped), seemed a more likely place, a place in Florida with which he was familiar.
The economic climate has delayed construction at Ave Maria, but progress remains impressive. There is already the new $240 million Ave Maria University, which opened in 2007, hoping to attract 5,000 students. Now he has 600.
Dominating the landscape is a $24 million, 60,000 square foot, 10-story steel and stone church with glass arches. It has the country’s largest crucifix in stained glass, one with a 60-foot-tall bleeding Jesus. And 1,100 seats, making it one of the largest Catholic churches in the United States.
By building the Hail Mary, Monaghan is obviously trying to use his millions to pave his and others’ paths to Heaven. “I want to go to heaven and take as many people as I can,” he says. ‘I don’t want to go to hell.’