EDITORIAL – Deprivation dominant in dystopia

Somewhere just outside of Naples, Fla., Domino’s Pizza founder Thomas S. Monaghan recently… Somewhere just outside of Naples, Fla., Domino’s Pizza founder Thomas S. Monaghan recently began construction of his dream: the theocratic town of Ave Maria.

No, that was not a really long typo. Just have your WTF moment and keep reading.

The town – bankrolled to the tune of $250 million by Monaghan in partnership with developer Barron Collier Co. – will be built on 5,000 acres of land and have as its core Ave Maria University, the first Catholic university to be built in the United States in 40 years.

Although the 20,000-some homeowners Monaghan anticipates will own their property just as usual, the stores in Ave Maria will not make available any form of birth control or pornography, the cable system will not carry adult channels and there will be nowhere to get an abortion. Sin, apparently, will be not just prohibited but unavailable. It is “God’s will,” Monaghan says.

What the town will have is the world’s biggest crucifix.

Applicants, the line forms to the right.

Forget for a moment just how little sense it makes that the man who brought us the five-for-five special now has delusions of Calvin and wants to build a “Demolition Man”-style utopia governed strictly by Roman Catholic principles. If you think about this too much, your brain will melt.

There are some legitimate legal issues here. Sure, it’s ostensibly up to you if you want to attend Ave Maria U. or move there, but even as the sole property owner, does Monaghan really have the right to dictate these sorts of things? He may have discretion over the contents of his leases, but we have laws in this country about what you can and cannot require of tenants. The legal battle has yet to be fought in court over the specific issue of Ave Maria, but we’re guessing that, just like any legally recognized township, Ave Maria should and would ultimately be allowed to skirt any constitutionally guaranteed civil rights.

Aside from the legality of this little endeavor, which is highly dubious at best, there’s the issue of the plausibility of Monaghan’s goal. Does Monaghan really think that in the age of information and instant gratification, he’s just going to be able to keep vice out of his town? How long do you really think it’s going to be before the town gets its first weed dealer or moonshine distiller? How popular do you think the first kid in town to get satellite TV is going to be?

Sure, maybe this will somehow work out for most and it’ll be a nice, surreal little place for the strictly religious to study and live, more power to those who choose to live there if it does, but don’t get your hopes up. People want their vices, even good people. The people who will inevitably end up living in Ave Maria for reasons other than that they wanted to are really going to jones for them.

We’d like to believe that there isn’t any virtue in avoiding sin and vice because they aren’t available. Virtue comes at choosing not to do what you believe is wrong when the option is right there on the table. Let’s all try to remember that before the republic is dissolved and Little Caesar is declared Emperor for Life.