Monaghan’s Ave Maria Town Open for Piety

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So GQ nabbed an interview with the ever-elusive Tom Monaghan, the Domino’s Pizza mogul turned Catholic-utopia builder. Monaghan wouldn’t talk with MoJo when we covered the development of his $400 million university, Ave Maria, earlier this year. But GQ is different; he can tell them things like, “If I didn’t have my faith, I’d make Hugh Hefner look like a piker.”

Hef allusions aside, the GQ profile digs into Monaghan’s motivations for building what will become a Catholic universe set amidst former panther habitat. Turns out he’s always wanted to be an architect, and is now living his dream having built the anti-Las Vegas, complete with a towering cathedral and town square modeled after Siena, Italy, all tucked in the middle of the Florida Everglades.

The town, which the WSJ once compared to a “Catholic Jonestown,” will be as pious as possible; if Monaghan had his way contraceptives and pornography would be outlawed. After all, his goals are big ones; he plans to “reinvent hometown living,” one condo at a time.

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It’s reader support that enables Mother Jones to devote the time and resources to report the facts that are too difficult, expensive, or inconvenient for other news outlets to uncover. Please help with a donation today if you can—even a few bucks will make a real difference. A monthly gift would be incredible.

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