Tom Monaghan
Encyclopedia
Thomas Stephen "Tom" Monaghan (born March 25, 1937 in Ann Arbor, Michigan
) is an entrepreneur
and Catholic
philanthropist
and activist who founded Domino's Pizza
in 1960. He owned the Detroit Tigers
from 1983-1992.
Monaghan sold Domino's in 1998 and has subsequently dedicated his time and considerable fortune to Catholic philanthropy and political causes. A champion of the pro-life
and other conservative causes, Monaghan has spent hundreds of millions of dollars to further this agenda.
He and his wife, Marjorie Zybach, were married in 1962 and have four adult daughters.
, was run by the Felician Sisters
of Livonia
; the nuns there inspired his devotion to the Catholic faith and he later entered a minor seminary, with the desire to eventually become a priest. Subsequently, he was expelled from the seminary for a series of disciplinary infractions.
In 1956 Monaghan enlisted in the United States Marine Corps
by mistake; he had meant to join the Army
. He received an honorable discharge in 1959.
in 1959, and enrolled in the University of Michigan
, intending to become an architect. While still a student, he and his brother James borrowed $500 to purchase a small pizza store called DomiNick's in Ypsilanti, Michigan
. This business would, after a lawsuit from Domino's Sugar, grow into Domino's Pizza
. Tom, after opening a further three stores, traded his brother James a Volkswagen Beetle
for his half of the business. Monaghan dropped sub sandwiches from the menu and focused on delivery to college campuses, inventing a new insulated pizza box to improve delivery. The new box, unlike its chipboard predecessors, could be stacked without squishing the pizzas inside, permitting more pizzas per trip, and keeping them warm until they arrived. Spreading his model to other college towns through a tightly-controlled franchising
system, by the mid-1980s there were nearly three new Domino's franchises opening every day.
He sold his controlling stake in Domino's Pizza in 1998 to Bain Capital, an investment firm based in Boston, for an estimated $1 billion. Monaghan returned to Domino's in 2001 after its fortunes worsened and helped the company recover.
In 1989, the National Organization for Women
(NOW) called for a boycott of Domino's because of his views, but it is unclear what effect, if any, that had on the company's sales.
on pride (from Mere Christianity
), Monaghan divested himself of most of his more ostentatious possessions, including the Detroit Tigers
in 1992. He gave up his lavish office suite at Domino's headquarters, replete with leather-tiled floors and an array of expensive Frank Lloyd Wright
furnishings, turning it into a corporate reception room. He also ceased construction on a huge Wright-inspired mansion that was to be his home. (The house remains half-finished.)
, who won the World Series
a year later. He became close to Major League Baseball commissioner Bowie Kuhn
, who remained a close friend, business associate and participant in his many philanthropic works. Monaghan ultimately sold the Tigers to his competitor Mike Ilitch
of Little Caesar's Pizza
in 1992. Combining his passion for pizza and baseball, his 1986 autobiography was titled Pizza Tiger. Monaghan made the much maligned and eventually reversed decision to fire legendary broadcaster Ernie Harwell
.
's architecture, and the Domino's headquarters in Ann Arbor Township, Michigan strongly resembles Wright's Prairie School
architecture adapted to a larger scale. He has been one of the foremost collectors of Wright artifacts, including an oak dining room table and chairs for which he paid $1.6 million. He even purchased a portion of Drummond Island
in Michigan, where he created a private resort complex featuring buildings designed in the style of Wright.
s, for which he paid $8.1 million in 1986. He later sold the car for $8 million.
In the early 1990s he also built a mission in a Honduras mountain town, and funded and supervised the construction of a new cathedral
in Managua
, Nicaragua
, after the old cathedral
was destroyed in a 1972 earthquake
.
with a particular interest in pro-life causes and the appointment of pro-life Justices to the U.S. Supreme Court. He established or helped establish a number of Catholic organizations and Catholic educational establishments. In 1987 Monaghan received Holy Communion from Pope John Paul II
in his private papal chapel at the Vatican
. The orchestral Ave Maria Mass, by composer Stephen Edwards, was commissioned by Monaghan "to express in music the spiritual commitment behind the founding of Ave Maria College and Ave Maria School of Law." This mass has now been dedicated by the composer to the victims of September 11
. Monaghan publicly promotes daily attendance at Mass
, daily recitation of the rosary
and frequent sacramental confession
. He has also committed to spending what remains of his $1 billion fortune on philanthropic endeavors.
His 1987 Vatican visit moved him so much he returned to the United States committed to promoting the Catholic faith. He soon established Ave Maria Radio, the Ave Maria List pro-life political action committee, and the Thomas More Law Center
, a public interest law firm dedicated to promoting social conservative issues such as opposition to abortion
, same sex marriage, and secularism
.
The Ave Maria foundation donates resources to help alleviate poverty in Central and South America. In addition, his foundation established the Spiritus Sanctus Academies
. These elementary schools are administered by the Dominican
Sisters of Mary, Mother of the Eucharist
. This order of teaching sisters has benefited from Monaghan's philanthropy. In 10 years, it has grown rapidly, from 4 to 70 nuns.
The Ave Maria Foundation has subsequently fine-tuned its focus to higher education, and has established both a university and a law school. Along with that change in focus, many of the other non-profit entities that the Ave Maria Foundation established have become independent or are in the process of being weaned from Ave Maria Foundation grants. This narrowing of focus and the recent geographic re-alignment to Florida (see below) have ignited no small amount of controversy among those who share his religious convictions.
Mr. Monaghan is reputed to be a member of Opus Dei
and has been alligned with a number of other conservative Catholic organizations and causes.
Monaghan is a donor to Priests for Life
, a Roman Catholic pro-life
organization. He is a knight of magistral grace in the Sovereign Military Order of Malta.
, previously located in Ann Arbor, Michigan, opened its doors in 2000, and received full accreditation from the American Bar Association
in 2005. The school was a dream of several professors from the Catholic University of Detroit Mercy
, who publicly left that institution when it allowed several pro-choice
members of the Michigan Supreme Court to appear at the school's annual "Red Mass." Professors Stephen Safranek, Mollie Murphy, Richard Myers and Joseph Falvey, setting out to form a new orthodox Catholic law school, presented their idea to Monaghan (who had previously been a strong supporter of opening a new law school at Franciscan University
) to provide significant funding through his Ave Maria Foundation. Together they enlisted Bernard Dobranski, Dean at The Catholic University of America
's law school and former Dean of Detroit Mercy's Law School, to lead up the new school as dean. Monaghan served as president of the school's Board of Governors.
Faculty members have included conservative legal scholar and Supreme Court nominee Judge Robert Bork
. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia
assisted in developing the school's curriculum, and the school's first annual Ave Maria Lecture was presented by Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas
in 1999. The school's stated goal is to educate competent "moral" attorneys who will influence all aspects of the legal profession and advance natural law
theory. The Ave Maria Law School graduated its last Michigan class in Spring of 2009 and relocated to Naples, Florida permanently immediately thereafter.
in Ypsilanti, Michigan
. In various attempts to accelerate accreditation, Monaghan acquired St. Mary's College of Orchard Lake
and a campus in Nicaragua
, renamed Ave Maria College of the Americas.
Due to lack of funding, the college, against faculty and student protests, closed in 2007. Alternative funding was not secured to prevent the school's closure. St. Mary's College was sold and is now under the auspices of nearby Madonna University
.
in Ann Arbor, at Domino's Farms, the large corporate office park that he owned and leased to Domino's Pizza. The plans included a 250-foot crucifix
- taller than the Statue of Liberty
. Local officials refused to approve the zoning change, forcing him to look elsewhere for a site. Eventually community leaders in Collier County, Florida, offered him a large undeveloped tract of land thirty miles east of Naples, Florida
to develop the university.
In February 2006, ground was broken for the new Catholic
university and town, Ave Maria, Florida
. A joint venture, in which Monaghan is a 50% partner with developer Barron Collier, controls all non-university real estate in the town, and plans to build 11,000 homes and several business districts. Pulte Homes has been signed up to build most of the private homes. Monaghan said in 2005 that any town retailers would not be allowed to sell contraceptives or pornography
, a statement which drew legal and moral criticism from the ACLU. Threatened with lawsuits, Monaghan and the developers went on a national PR campaign in March 2007 to retract the notion that Catholic doctrine could ever be enforced as law. Defenders of Wildlife has also challenged the development, stating it is destroying habitat of the endangered Florida Panther
.
by asking friend George P. Schwartz of Schwartz Investment Counsel, Inc. to launch the Ave Maria Catholic Values Fund in May 2001. There are now five Ave Maria Mutual Funds. They are described as targeted at investors seeking to place their money in companies whose operations are in keeping with the core teachings of the Catholic Church. The fund calls their shareholders "morally responsible investors." The funds are open to individual investors with a $1,000 minimum investment.
Monaghan is a member of the Catholic Advisory Board. The board sets the religious criteria that screen companies before the funds will invest in them. Involvement with contraception, non-marital partner employee benefits, pornography, and abortion are some issues that disqualify a company from the fund. Lou Holtz
, Larry Kudlow, Michael Novak, Phyllis Schlafly and Paul Roney are the other members of the Funds' Catholic Advisory Board. Cardinal Maida (of Detroit) is the board's ecclesiastic advisor.
politics, and was one of the key financial backers of Sam Brownback
in his 2008 presidential campaign.
Ann Arbor, Michigan
Ann Arbor is a city in the U.S. state of Michigan and the county seat of Washtenaw County. The 2010 census places the population at 113,934, making it the sixth largest city in Michigan. The Ann Arbor Metropolitan Statistical Area had a population of 344,791 as of 2010...
) is an entrepreneur
Entrepreneur
An entrepreneur is an owner or manager of a business enterprise who makes money through risk and initiative.The term was originally a loanword from French and was first defined by the Irish-French economist Richard Cantillon. Entrepreneur in English is a term applied to a person who is willing to...
and Catholic
Roman Catholic Church
The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the world's largest Christian church, with over a billion members. Led by the Pope, it defines its mission as spreading the gospel of Jesus Christ, administering the sacraments and exercising charity...
philanthropist
Philanthropist
A philanthropist is someone who engages in philanthropy; that is, someone who donates his or her time, money, and/or reputation to charitable causes...
and activist who founded Domino's Pizza
Domino's Pizza
Domino's Pizza, Inc. is an international pizza delivery corporation headquartered in Ann Arbor, Michigan, United States of America. Founded in 1960, Domino's is the second-largest pizza chain in the United States and has over 9,000 corporate and franchised stores in 60 countries and all 50 U.S....
in 1960. He owned the Detroit Tigers
Detroit Tigers
The Detroit Tigers are a Major League Baseball team located in Detroit, Michigan. One of the American League's eight charter franchises, the club was founded in Detroit in as part of the Western League. The Tigers have won four World Series championships and have won the American League pennant...
from 1983-1992.
Monaghan sold Domino's in 1998 and has subsequently dedicated his time and considerable fortune to Catholic philanthropy and political causes. A champion of the pro-life
Pro-life
Opposition to the legalization of abortion is centered around the pro-life, or anti-abortion, movement, a social and political movement opposing elective abortion on moral grounds and supporting its legal prohibition or restriction...
and other conservative causes, Monaghan has spent hundreds of millions of dollars to further this agenda.
He and his wife, Marjorie Zybach, were married in 1962 and have four adult daughters.
Early life
After his father died when Monaghan was four years old, Monaghan's mother had difficulties raising him alone, and at age six, in 1943, Monaghan and his younger brother ended up in an orphanage until their mother collected them again in 1949. The orphanage, St. Joseph Home for Children in Jackson, MichiganJackson, Michigan
Jackson is a city located along Interstate 94 in the south central area of the U.S. state of Michigan, about west of Ann Arbor and south of Lansing. It is the county seat of Jackson County. As of the 2010 census, the city population was 33,534...
, was run by the Felician Sisters
Felician Sisters
The Sisters of St. Felix of Cantalice, or Felician Sisters, are one branch of the Third Order of St. Francis. The active-contemplative order was founded in Warsaw, Poland, in 1855, by Sophia Truszkowska, and named for a shrine of St. Felix, a 16th century Franciscan saint especially devoted to...
of Livonia
Livonia, Michigan
Livonia is a city in the northwest part of Wayne County in the U.S. state of Michigan. Livonia is a very large suburb with an array of traditional neighborhoods connected to the metropolitan area by freeways. The population was 96,942 at the 2010 census, making it Michigan's 9th largest...
; the nuns there inspired his devotion to the Catholic faith and he later entered a minor seminary, with the desire to eventually become a priest. Subsequently, he was expelled from the seminary for a series of disciplinary infractions.
In 1956 Monaghan enlisted in the United States Marine Corps
United States Marine Corps
The United States Marine Corps is a branch of the United States Armed Forces responsible for providing power projection from the sea, using the mobility of the United States Navy to deliver combined-arms task forces rapidly. It is one of seven uniformed services of the United States...
by mistake; he had meant to join the Army
United States Army
The United States Army is the main branch of the United States Armed Forces responsible for land-based military operations. It is the largest and oldest established branch of the U.S. military, and is one of seven U.S. uniformed services...
. He received an honorable discharge in 1959.
Domino's Pizza
Monaghan returned to Ann Arbor, MichiganAnn Arbor, Michigan
Ann Arbor is a city in the U.S. state of Michigan and the county seat of Washtenaw County. The 2010 census places the population at 113,934, making it the sixth largest city in Michigan. The Ann Arbor Metropolitan Statistical Area had a population of 344,791 as of 2010...
in 1959, and enrolled in the University of Michigan
University of Michigan
The University of Michigan is a public research university located in Ann Arbor, Michigan in the United States. It is the state's oldest university and the flagship campus of the University of Michigan...
, intending to become an architect. While still a student, he and his brother James borrowed $500 to purchase a small pizza store called DomiNick's in Ypsilanti, Michigan
Ypsilanti, Michigan
Ypsilanti is a city in Washtenaw County in the U.S. state of Michigan. As of the 2000 census, the city population was 22,362. The city is bounded to the north by the Charter Township of Superior and on the west, south, and east by the Charter Township of Ypsilanti...
. This business would, after a lawsuit from Domino's Sugar, grow into Domino's Pizza
Domino's Pizza
Domino's Pizza, Inc. is an international pizza delivery corporation headquartered in Ann Arbor, Michigan, United States of America. Founded in 1960, Domino's is the second-largest pizza chain in the United States and has over 9,000 corporate and franchised stores in 60 countries and all 50 U.S....
. Tom, after opening a further three stores, traded his brother James a Volkswagen Beetle
Volkswagen Beetle
The Volkswagen Type 1, widely known as the Volkswagen Beetle or Volkswagen Bug, is an economy car produced by the German auto maker Volkswagen from 1938 until 2003...
for his half of the business. Monaghan dropped sub sandwiches from the menu and focused on delivery to college campuses, inventing a new insulated pizza box to improve delivery. The new box, unlike its chipboard predecessors, could be stacked without squishing the pizzas inside, permitting more pizzas per trip, and keeping them warm until they arrived. Spreading his model to other college towns through a tightly-controlled franchising
Franchising
Franchising is the practice of using another firm's successful business model. The word 'franchise' is of anglo-French derivation - from franc- meaning free, and is used both as a noun and as a verb....
system, by the mid-1980s there were nearly three new Domino's franchises opening every day.
He sold his controlling stake in Domino's Pizza in 1998 to Bain Capital, an investment firm based in Boston, for an estimated $1 billion. Monaghan returned to Domino's in 2001 after its fortunes worsened and helped the company recover.
In 1989, the National Organization for Women
National Organization for Women
The National Organization for Women is the largest feminist organization in the United States. It was founded in 1966 and has a membership of 500,000 contributing members. The organization consists of 550 chapters in all 50 U.S...
(NOW) called for a boycott of Domino's because of his views, but it is unclear what effect, if any, that had on the company's sales.
Leisure
The wealth Monaghan amassed from Domino's Pizza enabled a lavish lifestyle. However after reading a passage by C. S. LewisC. S. Lewis
Clive Staples Lewis , commonly referred to as C. S. Lewis and known to his friends and family as "Jack", was a novelist, academic, medievalist, literary critic, essayist, lay theologian and Christian apologist from Belfast, Ireland...
on pride (from Mere Christianity
Mere Christianity
Mere Christianity is a theological book by C. S. Lewis, adapted from a series of BBC radio talks made between 1941 and 1944, while Lewis was at Oxford during World War II...
), Monaghan divested himself of most of his more ostentatious possessions, including the Detroit Tigers
Detroit Tigers
The Detroit Tigers are a Major League Baseball team located in Detroit, Michigan. One of the American League's eight charter franchises, the club was founded in Detroit in as part of the Western League. The Tigers have won four World Series championships and have won the American League pennant...
in 1992. He gave up his lavish office suite at Domino's headquarters, replete with leather-tiled floors and an array of expensive Frank Lloyd Wright
Frank Lloyd Wright
Frank Lloyd Wright was an American architect, interior designer, writer and educator, who designed more than 1,000 structures and completed 500 works. Wright believed in designing structures which were in harmony with humanity and its environment, a philosophy he called organic architecture...
furnishings, turning it into a corporate reception room. He also ceased construction on a huge Wright-inspired mansion that was to be his home. (The house remains half-finished.)
Detroit Tigers
In 1983, Monaghan bought the Detroit TigersDetroit Tigers
The Detroit Tigers are a Major League Baseball team located in Detroit, Michigan. One of the American League's eight charter franchises, the club was founded in Detroit in as part of the Western League. The Tigers have won four World Series championships and have won the American League pennant...
, who won the World Series
1984 World Series
The 1984 World Series began on October 9 and ended on October 14, 1984. The American League champion Detroit Tigers played against the National League champion San Diego Padres, with the Tigers winning the series four games to one....
a year later. He became close to Major League Baseball commissioner Bowie Kuhn
Bowie Kuhn
Bowie Kent Kuhn was an American lawyer and sports administrator who served as the fifth Commissioner of Major League Baseball from February 4, , to September 30,...
, who remained a close friend, business associate and participant in his many philanthropic works. Monaghan ultimately sold the Tigers to his competitor Mike Ilitch
Mike Ilitch
Michael "Mike" Ilitch Sr. is an American entrepreneur and owner of the Detroit Red Wings and the Detroit Tigers. In addition to his sports ownerships, he is the founder and owner of Little Caesars Pizza since 1959, which has become an international fast food franchise...
of Little Caesar's Pizza
Little Caesars
Little Caesars is a pizza chain, estimated to be the 4th largest in the United States. The Little Caesars headquarters is located in the Fox Theatre building in Downtown Detroit, Michigan.-History:...
in 1992. Combining his passion for pizza and baseball, his 1986 autobiography was titled Pizza Tiger. Monaghan made the much maligned and eventually reversed decision to fire legendary broadcaster Ernie Harwell
Ernie Harwell
William Earnest "Ernie" Harwell was an American sportscaster, known for his long career calling play-by-play of Major League Baseball games. For 55 years, 42 of them with the Detroit Tigers, Harwell called the action on radio and/or television...
.
Frank Lloyd Wright
Monaghan is a fan of Frank Lloyd WrightFrank Lloyd Wright
Frank Lloyd Wright was an American architect, interior designer, writer and educator, who designed more than 1,000 structures and completed 500 works. Wright believed in designing structures which were in harmony with humanity and its environment, a philosophy he called organic architecture...
's architecture, and the Domino's headquarters in Ann Arbor Township, Michigan strongly resembles Wright's Prairie School
Prairie School
Prairie School was a late 19th and early 20th century architectural style, most common to the Midwestern United States.The works of the Prairie School architects are usually marked by horizontal lines, flat or hipped roofs with broad overhanging eaves, windows grouped in horizontal bands,...
architecture adapted to a larger scale. He has been one of the foremost collectors of Wright artifacts, including an oak dining room table and chairs for which he paid $1.6 million. He even purchased a portion of Drummond Island
Drummond Township, Michigan
Drummond Township is a civil township of Chippewa County in the U.S. state of Michigan. The population was 992 at the 2000 census.The township consists of Drummond Island, one of the largest islands in Lake Huron. M-134 runs through the western portion of the island...
in Michigan, where he created a private resort complex featuring buildings designed in the style of Wright.
Other
Another of Monaghan's expensive passions has been automobiles, and for a time his collection included one of the world's six Bugatti RoyaleBugatti Royale
The Bugatti Type 41, better known as the Royale, was a large luxury car with a 4.3 m wheelbase and 6.4 m overall length. It weighed approximately 3175 kg and used a 12.7 L straight-8 engine...
s, for which he paid $8.1 million in 1986. He later sold the car for $8 million.
In the early 1990s he also built a mission in a Honduras mountain town, and funded and supervised the construction of a new cathedral
Metropolitan Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception
The Metropolitan Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception , referred to as the New Cathedral , is located in Managua, Nicaragua...
in Managua
Managua
Managua is the capital city of Nicaragua as well as the department and municipality by the same name. It is the largest city in Nicaragua in terms of population and geographic size. Located on the southwestern shore of Lake Xolotlán or Lake Managua, the city was declared the national capital in...
, Nicaragua
Nicaragua
Nicaragua is the largest country in the Central American American isthmus, bordered by Honduras to the north and Costa Rica to the south. The country is situated between 11 and 14 degrees north of the Equator in the Northern Hemisphere, which places it entirely within the tropics. The Pacific Ocean...
, after the old cathedral
Old Cathedral of Managua
The Old Cathedral of Managua, known as the Catedral de Santiago in Spanish, is a cathedral in Managua, Nicaragua.It was designed in, and shipped from Belgium in 1920 by architect Pablo Dambach...
was destroyed in a 1972 earthquake
1972 Nicaragua earthquake
The 1972 Nicaragua earthquake was an earthquake that occurred at 12:29 a.m. local time on Saturday, December 23, 1972 near Managua, the capital of Nicaragua. It had a magnitude of 6.2 and occurred at a depth of about 5 kilometers beneath the centre of the city. Within an hour after the main...
.
Catholic philanthropy and activism
Monaghan is a CatholicCatholic
The word catholic comes from the Greek phrase , meaning "on the whole," "according to the whole" or "in general", and is a combination of the Greek words meaning "about" and meaning "whole"...
with a particular interest in pro-life causes and the appointment of pro-life Justices to the U.S. Supreme Court. He established or helped establish a number of Catholic organizations and Catholic educational establishments. In 1987 Monaghan received Holy Communion from Pope John Paul II
Pope John Paul II
Blessed Pope John Paul II , born Karol Józef Wojtyła , reigned as Pope of the Catholic Church and Sovereign of Vatican City from 16 October 1978 until his death on 2 April 2005, at of age. His was the second-longest documented pontificate, which lasted ; only Pope Pius IX ...
in his private papal chapel at the Vatican
Holy See
The Holy See is the episcopal jurisdiction of the Catholic Church in Rome, in which its Bishop is commonly known as the Pope. It is the preeminent episcopal see of the Catholic Church, forming the central government of the Church. As such, diplomatically, and in other spheres the Holy See acts and...
. The orchestral Ave Maria Mass, by composer Stephen Edwards, was commissioned by Monaghan "to express in music the spiritual commitment behind the founding of Ave Maria College and Ave Maria School of Law." This mass has now been dedicated by the composer to the victims of September 11
September 11, 2001 attacks
The September 11 attacks The September 11 attacks The September 11 attacks (also referred to as September 11, September 11th or 9/119/11 is pronounced "nine eleven". The slash is not part of the pronunciation...
. Monaghan publicly promotes daily attendance at Mass
Mass
Mass can be defined as a quantitive measure of the resistance an object has to change in its velocity.In physics, mass commonly refers to any of the following three properties of matter, which have been shown experimentally to be equivalent:...
, daily recitation of the rosary
Rosary
The rosary or "garland of roses" is a traditional Catholic devotion. The term denotes the prayer beads used to count the series of prayers that make up the rosary...
and frequent sacramental confession
Confession
This article is for the religious practice of confessing one's sins.Confession is the acknowledgment of sin or wrongs...
. He has also committed to spending what remains of his $1 billion fortune on philanthropic endeavors.
Catholic organizations
In 1983 he established the Mater Christi Foundation, today known as the Ave Maria Foundation, to focus on Catholic education, Catholic media, community projects and other Catholic charities. In 1987 he helped form Legatus, an organization of Catholic business leaders to promote the ideals of the Catholic Church in society. The name was taken from the Latin word for commander of a legion. Legatus was to serve as a spiritual resource and social community for "top-ranking Catholic business leaders".His 1987 Vatican visit moved him so much he returned to the United States committed to promoting the Catholic faith. He soon established Ave Maria Radio, the Ave Maria List pro-life political action committee, and the Thomas More Law Center
Thomas More Law Center
The Thomas More Law Center is a prominent conservative Christian, not-for-profit law center based in Ann Arbor, Michigan, and is active throughout the United States. Its stated goals are defending the religious freedom of Christians, restoring "time honored values" and protecting the sanctity of...
, a public interest law firm dedicated to promoting social conservative issues such as opposition to abortion
Abortion
Abortion is defined as the termination of pregnancy by the removal or expulsion from the uterus of a fetus or embryo prior to viability. An abortion can occur spontaneously, in which case it is usually called a miscarriage, or it can be purposely induced...
, same sex marriage, and secularism
Secularism
Secularism is the principle of separation between government institutions and the persons mandated to represent the State from religious institutions and religious dignitaries...
.
The Ave Maria foundation donates resources to help alleviate poverty in Central and South America. In addition, his foundation established the Spiritus Sanctus Academies
Spiritus Sanctus Academies
Spiritus Sanctus Academies is a group of private schools based in southeastern Michigan teaching the Roman Catholic faith and regular classes founded by Thomas Monaghan and run by the Sisters of Mary, Mother of the Eucharist. Currently, there are two active schools...
. These elementary schools are administered by the Dominican
Dominican Order
The Order of Preachers , after the 15th century more commonly known as the Dominican Order or Dominicans, is a Catholic religious order founded by Saint Dominic and approved by Pope Honorius III on 22 December 1216 in France...
Sisters of Mary, Mother of the Eucharist
Sisters of Mary, Mother of the Eucharist
The Dominican Sisters of Mary, Mother of the Eucharist is a Roman Catholic religious order founded in 1997 by four members of the Dominican Sisters of St. Cecilia. Based in Ann Arbor, Michigan, it has, as of 2010, approximately 100 Sisters.-History:...
. This order of teaching sisters has benefited from Monaghan's philanthropy. In 10 years, it has grown rapidly, from 4 to 70 nuns.
The Ave Maria Foundation has subsequently fine-tuned its focus to higher education, and has established both a university and a law school. Along with that change in focus, many of the other non-profit entities that the Ave Maria Foundation established have become independent or are in the process of being weaned from Ave Maria Foundation grants. This narrowing of focus and the recent geographic re-alignment to Florida (see below) have ignited no small amount of controversy among those who share his religious convictions.
Mr. Monaghan is reputed to be a member of Opus Dei
Opus Dei
Opus Dei, formally known as The Prelature of the Holy Cross and Opus Dei , is an organization of the Catholic Church that teaches that everyone is called to holiness and that ordinary life is a path to sanctity. The majority of its membership are lay people, with secular priests under the...
and has been alligned with a number of other conservative Catholic organizations and causes.
Monaghan is a donor to Priests for Life
Priests for Life
Priests for Life is a Roman Catholic pro-life organization based in New York. It functions as a network to promote and coordinate pro-life activism with the primary strategic goal of ending abortion and euthanasia and to spread the Gospel of Life according to the encyclical of the same name...
, a Roman Catholic pro-life
Pro-life
Opposition to the legalization of abortion is centered around the pro-life, or anti-abortion, movement, a social and political movement opposing elective abortion on moral grounds and supporting its legal prohibition or restriction...
organization. He is a knight of magistral grace in the Sovereign Military Order of Malta.
Ave Maria School of Law
The Ave Maria School of LawAve Maria School of Law
The Ave Maria School of Law, founded in 1999, is a fully ABA accredited Roman Catholic law school, located in Naples, Florida. In the 2009-2010 academic year, there were over 375 students enrolled from a variety of states, countries, and undergraduate institutions...
, previously located in Ann Arbor, Michigan, opened its doors in 2000, and received full accreditation from the American Bar Association
American Bar Association
The American Bar Association , founded August 21, 1878, is a voluntary bar association of lawyers and law students, which is not specific to any jurisdiction in the United States. The ABA's most important stated activities are the setting of academic standards for law schools, and the formulation...
in 2005. The school was a dream of several professors from the Catholic University of Detroit Mercy
University of Detroit Mercy
University of Detroit Mercy is a private, Roman Catholic co-educational university in Detroit, Michigan, United States, affiliated with the Society of Jesus and the Sisters of Mercy. Antoine M. Garibaldi is the president. With origins dating from 1877, it is the largest Roman Catholic university...
, who publicly left that institution when it allowed several pro-choice
Pro-choice
Support for the legalization of abortion is centered around the pro-choice movement, a sociopolitical movement supporting the ethical view that a woman should have the legal right to elective abortion, meaning the right to terminate her pregnancy....
members of the Michigan Supreme Court to appear at the school's annual "Red Mass." Professors Stephen Safranek, Mollie Murphy, Richard Myers and Joseph Falvey, setting out to form a new orthodox Catholic law school, presented their idea to Monaghan (who had previously been a strong supporter of opening a new law school at Franciscan University
Franciscan University of Steubenville
Franciscan University of Steubenville is a Catholic institution located in Steubenville, Ohio, west of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. The school was founded in 1946 by the Franciscan Friars of the Third Order Regular. In 1974, Fr...
) to provide significant funding through his Ave Maria Foundation. Together they enlisted Bernard Dobranski, Dean at The Catholic University of America
The Catholic University of America
The Catholic University of America is a private university located in Washington, D.C. in the United States. It is a pontifical university of the Catholic Church in the United States and the only institution of higher education founded by the U.S. Catholic bishops...
's law school and former Dean of Detroit Mercy's Law School, to lead up the new school as dean. Monaghan served as president of the school's Board of Governors.
Faculty members have included conservative legal scholar and Supreme Court nominee Judge Robert Bork
Robert Bork
Robert Heron Bork is an American legal scholar who has advocated the judicial philosophy of originalism. Bork formerly served as Solicitor General, Acting Attorney General, and judge for the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit...
. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia
Antonin Scalia
Antonin Gregory Scalia is an American jurist who serves as an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States. As the longest-serving justice on the Court, Scalia is the Senior Associate Justice...
assisted in developing the school's curriculum, and the school's first annual Ave Maria Lecture was presented by Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas
Clarence Thomas
Clarence Thomas is an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States. Succeeding Thurgood Marshall, Thomas is the second African American to serve on the Court....
in 1999. The school's stated goal is to educate competent "moral" attorneys who will influence all aspects of the legal profession and advance natural law
Natural law
Natural law, or the law of nature , is any system of law which is purportedly determined by nature, and thus universal. Classically, natural law refers to the use of reason to analyze human nature and deduce binding rules of moral behavior. Natural law is contrasted with the positive law Natural...
theory. The Ave Maria Law School graduated its last Michigan class in Spring of 2009 and relocated to Naples, Florida permanently immediately thereafter.
Ave Maria College
As a step to fulfilling his dream of creating a new Catholic university, Monaghan founded Ave Maria CollegeAve Maria College
Ave Maria University - Latin American Campus ' is a branch campus of Ave Maria University in Florida, United States. It is located in the small town of San Marcos, Carazo, Nicaragua...
in Ypsilanti, Michigan
Ypsilanti, Michigan
Ypsilanti is a city in Washtenaw County in the U.S. state of Michigan. As of the 2000 census, the city population was 22,362. The city is bounded to the north by the Charter Township of Superior and on the west, south, and east by the Charter Township of Ypsilanti...
. In various attempts to accelerate accreditation, Monaghan acquired St. Mary's College of Orchard Lake
Saint Mary's College (Michigan)
Saint Mary's College, also known as St. Mary's College of Madonna University, is a college located in Orchard Lake Village, Michigan. St. Mary's College shares its campus with St. Mary's Preparatory and SS. Cyril and Methodius Seminary. It is located on the former site of the Michigan Military...
and a campus in Nicaragua
Nicaragua
Nicaragua is the largest country in the Central American American isthmus, bordered by Honduras to the north and Costa Rica to the south. The country is situated between 11 and 14 degrees north of the Equator in the Northern Hemisphere, which places it entirely within the tropics. The Pacific Ocean...
, renamed Ave Maria College of the Americas.
Due to lack of funding, the college, against faculty and student protests, closed in 2007. Alternative funding was not secured to prevent the school's closure. St. Mary's College was sold and is now under the auspices of nearby Madonna University
Madonna University
Madonna University is a private, non-profit, Catholic university located in suburban Livonia, Michigan, on the western perimeter of metropolitan Detroit. Conducted by the Felician Sisters, it has extension campuses in Southwest Detroit, Orchard Lake, Michigan Madonna University is a private,...
.
Ave Maria University, Florida
In early 2002 Monaghan sought to establish the Ave Maria UniversityAve Maria University
Ave Maria University or AMU is a private Catholic university in southwest Florida, United States, founded in 2003. The university moved to its permanent campus, situated in the planned town of Ave Maria, east of Naples, Florida, in August 2007...
in Ann Arbor, at Domino's Farms, the large corporate office park that he owned and leased to Domino's Pizza. The plans included a 250-foot crucifix
Crucifix
A crucifix is an independent image of Jesus on the cross with a representation of Jesus' body, referred to in English as the corpus , as distinct from a cross with no body....
- taller than the Statue of Liberty
Statue of Liberty
The Statue of Liberty is a colossal neoclassical sculpture on Liberty Island in New York Harbor, designed by Frédéric Bartholdi and dedicated on October 28, 1886...
. Local officials refused to approve the zoning change, forcing him to look elsewhere for a site. Eventually community leaders in Collier County, Florida, offered him a large undeveloped tract of land thirty miles east of Naples, Florida
Naples, Florida
Naples is a city in Collier County, Florida, United States. As of July 1, 2007, the U.S. Census Bureau estimated the city's population at 21,653. Naples is a principal city of the Naples–Marco Island Metropolitan Statistical Area, which had an estimated total population of 315,839 on July 1, 2007...
to develop the university.
In February 2006, ground was broken for the new Catholic
Catholic
The word catholic comes from the Greek phrase , meaning "on the whole," "according to the whole" or "in general", and is a combination of the Greek words meaning "about" and meaning "whole"...
university and town, Ave Maria, Florida
Ave Maria, Florida
Ave Maria, Florida, United States is a planned college town currently under development in Collier County, near Immokalee and Naples. It is an unincorporated community, founded in 2005 by a partnership consisting of the Barron Collier Cos., a large diversified private company, and the Ave Maria...
. A joint venture, in which Monaghan is a 50% partner with developer Barron Collier, controls all non-university real estate in the town, and plans to build 11,000 homes and several business districts. Pulte Homes has been signed up to build most of the private homes. Monaghan said in 2005 that any town retailers would not be allowed to sell contraceptives or pornography
Pornography
Pornography or porn is the explicit portrayal of sexual subject matter for the purposes of sexual arousal and erotic satisfaction.Pornography may use any of a variety of media, ranging from books, magazines, postcards, photos, sculpture, drawing, painting, animation, sound recording, film, video,...
, a statement which drew legal and moral criticism from the ACLU. Threatened with lawsuits, Monaghan and the developers went on a national PR campaign in March 2007 to retract the notion that Catholic doctrine could ever be enforced as law. Defenders of Wildlife has also challenged the development, stating it is destroying habitat of the endangered Florida Panther
Florida Panther
The Florida panther is an endangered subspecies of cougar that lives in forests and swamps of southern Florida in the United States. Its current taxonomic status is unresolved, but recent genetic research alone does not alter the legal conservation status...
.
Ave Maria Mutual Funds
Monaghan helped to establish the Ave Maria Mutual FundsAve Maria Mutual Funds
Ave Maria Mutual Funds is a U.S. mutual fund family that targets clients interested in financially sound investments in companies that do not violate certain religious principles of the Roman Catholic Church. Often described as socially responsible investing , but more accuratedly in the case of...
by asking friend George P. Schwartz of Schwartz Investment Counsel, Inc. to launch the Ave Maria Catholic Values Fund in May 2001. There are now five Ave Maria Mutual Funds. They are described as targeted at investors seeking to place their money in companies whose operations are in keeping with the core teachings of the Catholic Church. The fund calls their shareholders "morally responsible investors." The funds are open to individual investors with a $1,000 minimum investment.
Monaghan is a member of the Catholic Advisory Board. The board sets the religious criteria that screen companies before the funds will invest in them. Involvement with contraception, non-marital partner employee benefits, pornography, and abortion are some issues that disqualify a company from the fund. Lou Holtz
Lou Holtz
Louis Leo "Lou" Holtz is a retired American football coach, and active sportscaster, author, and motivational speaker in the United States...
, Larry Kudlow, Michael Novak, Phyllis Schlafly and Paul Roney are the other members of the Funds' Catholic Advisory Board. Cardinal Maida (of Detroit) is the board's ecclesiastic advisor.
Political support
Monaghan has been active in Republican PartyRepublican Party (United States)
The Republican Party is one of the two major contemporary political parties in the United States, along with the Democratic Party. Founded by anti-slavery expansion activists in 1854, it is often called the GOP . The party's platform generally reflects American conservatism in the U.S...
politics, and was one of the key financial backers of Sam Brownback
Sam Brownback
Samuel Dale "Sam" Brownback is the 46th and current Governor of Kansas. A member of the Republican Party, he served as a U.S. Senator from Kansas from 1996 to 2011, and as a U.S. Representative for Kansas's 2nd congressional district from 1995 to 1996...
in his 2008 presidential campaign.