This diary covers two aspects of Ave Maria University's strangle-hold on women. One aspect the Town of Ave Maria, Florida and the other is Ave Maria University's which are owned and governed by the same person, Tom Monaghan - who also founded Dominos Pizza.
Ave Maria University's founder, Tom Monaghan, also owns and governs the entire Town of Ave Maria, Florida and he has banned contraception in the entire town. In fact, the one and only OB/GYN in the Town of Ave Maria will not ... will not ... prescribe contraception medication to any woman for any reason at all. For kicks, you can call the only OB/GYN in the town and find out for yourself: (239) 658-5100.
MONAGHAN: "... we will be able to control what goes on there. You won't be able to buy a Playboy or Hustler magazine in Ave Maria Town. We're going to control the cable television that comes in the area. There is not going to be any pornographic television in Ave Maria Town. If you go to the drug store and you want to buy the pill or the condoms or contraception, you won't be able to get that in Ave Maria Town."
~Wall Street Journal
The one and only church in the Town of Ave Maria (pictured above) is
owned by Tom Monaghan's Corporation, Quasi-Parish of Ave Maria Oratory, Inc. You will notice, Monaghan's church is conveniently located in the center of the town.
Tom Monaghan's ban on contraception for all women living within the Town of Ave Maria, Florida, regardless of their religion shows Tom Monaghan wants to have a strangle-hold on all women, not just his employees. But, as you will see below, Tom Monaghan's control of woman and men does not stop with contraception.
I should note here, Tom Monaghan also founded the Ave Maria Law School in 1999. You will be comforted in knowing that Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia assisted in developing Monaghan's school's curriculum, Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas gave Monaghan's school's their first annual Ave Maria Lecture and Ave Maria Law School Faculty included conservative Supreme Court nominee Judge Robert Bork.
Friends in high places ....
Tom Monaghan's Strangle-Hold on Women in the Town of Ave Maria
Now, the Town of Ave Maria, Florida is not your normal town primarily because Tom Monaghan and his developers lobbied, and got, the Florida State Legislature to pass a law that Monaghan wrote which allows him and his developer to govern the entire town forever.
Governor Jeb Bush signed Monaghan's bill into law in 2004.
The law Monaghan wrote, that Florida State Legislators passed and Gov. Jeb Bush signed, turns the town from a normal town, with a mayor etc., to a "Special Interest" town whereby the landowners have zero say in the laws Tom Monaghan enacts.
The Naples News reported http://www.naplesnews.com/...
The law makes landowners, not registered voters, the ultimate authority in Ave Maria. The law ensures Monaghan and Barron Collier Cos., as the largest landowners, can control Ave Maria's government forever.
(emphasis added by me)
Naples News goes on to say:
The law allows the executive committee, controlling the votes of the largest landowner, to choose at least three out of the five seats on the board forever.
(emphasis mine)
The Wall Street Journal reported that Monaghan gloated that he would remain the "largest landowner" so he could retain all control the lifestyle of people who live within the Town of Ave Maria.
MONAGHAN: "We'll own all commercial real estate. That means we will be able to control what goes on there. You won't be able to buy a Playboy or Hustler magazine in Ave Maria Town. We're going to control the cable television that comes in the area. There is not going to be any pornographic television in Ave Maria Town. If you go to the drug store and you want to buy the pill or the condoms or contraception, you won't be able to get that in Ave Maria Town."
And own he does. In fact,
Tom Monaghan's Corporation owns the one and only church in town that is placed in the center of the town.
Currently, there is no drugstore in Ave Maria, Florida.
Internal memos from before the law was enacted, show that Monaghan's intent was to own control over the land forever.
" ... we could control it in perpetuity," wrote Tom Sansbury, a Barron Collier Cos. vice president, in the memo.
In order to fill his town, Tom Monaghan's plan included relocating his employees in Michigan to the Town of Ave Maria, Florida. Several of his employees
sued him over the tactics Monaghan used to force them.
Monaghan began strong-arming employees and students to move there [Town of Ave Maria, Florida] from Michigan. This led to scores of firings, a federal investigation, $259,000 in revoked financial aid, and a half-dozen lawsuits totaling roughly $2 million.
Tom Monaghan has a habit, no pun intended, of ostracizing people who question his tactics. For instance, Town of Ave Maria resident Marielena Stuart was ostracized and banned from 1000 acres of land within the town for
questioning Monaghan's changes, yes changes, to Catholic Ex Corde Ecclesiae.
Now, remember, Monaghan's corporation owns the one and only church in town so, he gets to define "orthodox" and he gets to set the rules the church follows.
Miami News Times reported that Marielena Stuart was a devote "orthodox" Catholic who, upheld the Vatican's Ex Corde Ecclesiae. But, Tom Monaghan thought the Ecclesiae was too liberal so he eliminated it and when Stuart complained, all hell broke lose for her and her family.
Stuart, a conservative Catholic writer and blogger who resembles an aging Elizabeth Taylor, explained she felt like she was being watched from all angles. She had been banned from nearly 1,000 acres of the town for asking inconvenient questions. Now she was afraid to even step into her own church for fear of being arrested.
Monaghan fired
Katherine Ernsting when she complained that Ave Maria Law School in Michigan were diverting funds to Ave Maria University in Florida.
Katherine M. Ernsting who was fired for cooperating in a Department of Education investigation of Ave Maria's use of student-loan funds. Ave Maria was improperly using at AMU Florida funds that had been granted to AMC Michigan.
Ernsting won in court and was
awarded close to half a million dollars.
A jury in Ann Arbor awarded Kay Ernsting almost $418,000 Wednesday, plus attorney fees and interest, saying the college violated state law designed to protect employees who reveal wrongdoing in the workplace.
He fired
Rev. Joseph Fessio
In an e-mail Monday, Fessio wrote that his second firing stemmed from criticisms he expressed privately last November to AMU Board Chairman Jack Donahue about the university's financial footing.
In 2006 Monaghan said abortions, pornography and contraceptives will be banned in the Florida town of Ave Maria.
Fox News reported in 2006
Tom Monaghan, the founder of the Dominoâs Pizza chain, has stirred protests from civil rights activists by declaring that Ave Mariaâs pharmacies will not be allowed to sell condoms or birth control pills. The townâs cable television network will carry no X-rated channels.
There are
no pharmacies anywhere in the Town of Ave Maria, Florida.
The Herald Tribune
Stores will not sell pornographic magazines, pharmacies will not carry condoms or birth control pills, and cable television will carry no X-rated channels, he [Monaghan] said in a speech last year to the first annual Boston Catholic Men's Conference.
The Herald goes on to report
Monaghan and Barron Collier will control all commercial real estate in the town and could include provisions in leases that restrict the sale of certain items.
...
Naples Community Hospital, which plans to open a clinic in the town, will not prescribe any birth control to students [of Ave Maria University]. The hospital has not decided whether it will prescribe to the general public.
The hospital never opened a clinic in Ave Maria.
Apparently Jeb Bush saw no problem with denying residents their civil liberties:
Gov. Jeb Bush, at the university's recent [2006] groundbreaking, lauded the development as a new kind of town, where faith and freedom will merge to create a community of like-minded citizens.
Yes, a community of "like-minded citizens" whose rulers, like the Taliban, offer their residents no civil liberties not even the right to vote for local officials nor local laws.
Oh well ...
Tom Monaghan's Strangle-hold of Women at Ave Maria University
Dress-Code for Female Employees
In 2010, Tom Monaghan mandated that females working at Ave Maria University could no longer wear slacks or pantsuits and could only wear skirts.
Affordable Care Act
Ave Maria University (AMU) is already exempt from the conception mandate in Obamacare but, because they are exempt, they must notify Health & Human Services (HHS) of their exemption so that HHS can make certain that students and employees of AMU can get, if they so choose, contraception at no cost what-so-ever to AMU.
But, AMU allege two main positions:
1) If AMU notify HHS, then they are culpable of "morally wrong" behavior,
2) Even if AMU are not the ones paying for the contraception, it is "morally wrong" for them to notify HHS.
Lawyers for Ave Maria University just filed a Motion with the Court that, in part says:
Ave Maria believes that any action specifically intended to prevent procreation including contraception and sterilization is morally wrong.
Look close at their wording:
"any action..."
any action specifically intended to prevent procreation including contraception and sterilization ...
Now, taken at their word, that means Ave Maria University thinks woman should
not be allowed to deny sex to their husbands for any reason at all.
Taken at their word, it also means Ave Maria University does not think women should even be able to deny sex during her fertile period, which means no "rhythm method." So, apparently Tom Monaghan does not agree with the Pope, who sanctioned the "rhythm method" in 1951.
In 1951 Pope Pius XII sanctioned the rhythm method as a "natural" method of regulating procreation. In 1955 over 65% of Catholic women surveyed said they used Rhythm.
Taken at their word, "any action" also means Ave Maria University believes that women shall not, under any circumstances, get a hysterectomy - not even if her life depends on it.
It also means men should not "pull out" right before orgasm.
Ave Maria lawyers pretend that just telling the government they are exempt and who their insurer would be "morally wrong."
It also cannot participate in any scheme . . . to facilitate access to artificial contraception, sterilization, or abortion, or related education and counseling, without violating its deeply held beliefs, even if those items were paid for by an insurer or third party administrator and not by the University. Id . ¶ 38.
(emphasis added by me)
Ave Maria University lawyers go on to say
Delivery of either document [Form 700 or written] would obligate the insurer to provide Ave Maria employees with payment for the same products and services it cannot provide directly. Regardless of the delivery method, Ave Maria would still be arranging for this coverage and facilitating payment by another entity. Id . ¶¶ 56-57.
From Ave Mariaâs perspective, arranging for coverage and causing its insurer to provide payments for abortifacient and contraceptive products and services is no different than providing access directly. Id . Ave Maria would still be complicit in what it believes to be a grave moral wrong. Id . Simply put, Ave Maria is religiously opposed to any effort by the government, through whatever mechanism, to take over its healthcare plan for purposes of the Mandate.
(emphasis added by me)
Key Facts about AMU owner Tom Monaghan
The key facts about Ave Maria University's owner, Board of Trustee member, Tom Monaghan are extremely disturbing. The fact is, Tom Monaghan wants to ban contraception for all women, regardless of their religion ... Tom Monaghan wants to have a strangle-hold on all women, not just his employees.
Tom Monaghan explains that his mission and goal of Ave Maria University is to rid the United States of 'liberal Catholics'by the year 2077.
... "liberal Catholic"
From reading what Monaghen says, it appears Monaghan defines a 'liberal Catholic' as: a Pope, Cardinal, Bishop, Archbishop, priest, nun, or parishioner who does not follow his personal definition of "orthodox."
MONAGHAN: "The payoff will be the influence we will have had on the other 200-and-some Catholic, so-called Catholic, schools in the country. Hopefully we can be a beacon to bring them back to their roots."
(emphasis added by me)
The Catholic Register reports that
Under Monaghanâs plan, the seven-year-old university with more than 700 students will by 2077 produce 4,000 good priests 2,500 nuns, 400 top notch theologians, 8,000 teachers for U.S. Catholic schools, 1,500 school principals and 40,000 strong Catholic marriages which will in turn produce 150,000 children and 500,000 grandchildren.
Monaghan misses the days when women did not wear pants, kept their mouths shut and did as they were told. His use of the term "
so-called Catholics," above when he was talking about
other Catholic schools, are what he describes as "liberal Catholics" who have divided the Catholic Church and have veered away from the lovely Catholic life-style he enjoyed in the 1940s and 1950s.
Sure it (division in the Church) bothers me, Monaghan told The Catholic Register while visiting Toronto May 11 to speak to members of Legatus, the organization of Catholic business leaders he started. It's something that didn't seem to happen in the '40s and '50s.
Monaghan demonizes Catholics who are not what he considers his version of "orthodox."
MONAGHAN: It's almost like, in a sense, you had no religion with the so-called liberals. And the orthodox have lived the faith, believed the faith and they're growing. The ones who don't believe anything, they're fading away. A lot of their leadership is gone. The new bishops are stronger and more orthodox, I would think we are gaining more.
Keep in mind, Monaghan is calling certain Catholic Schools and certain Catholic priests "liberals."
And, to Monaghan, it is the so-called "liberal" priests and "liberal" Catholic Schools who are dividing the Catholic Church.
Monaghan, sort-of, explained that Catholic priests & Catholic Schools who do not think and behave the same way he does should just leave the Church. Although, I'm not sure the Catholic-Money-Counters are too hip on seeing their coffers dry up.
Monaghan told the Catholic Register:
The culture war between liberal and conservative Catholics in the United States is not a good thing, but it will only end when liberal Catholics embrace conservative principles or leave the Church entirely.
Here's the kicker:
Archbishop Lori worked with Ave Maria University to coordinate the strategy to oppose the Obamacare contraceptive mandate.
Archbishop Lori is chair of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB).
Historically, Archbishop Lori appears, through his own actions, to really have a loathing for women ... and ... other social minorities as well.
Archbishop Loris' 3-year Investigation of U.S. Nuns
Archbishop Lori is responsible for the Vatican's three year investigation of the Leadership Conference of Women Religious, which is the largest association of Catholic nuns in the United States.
In 2009 Lori was pissed that nuns were not as vocal as Bishops in demonizing: women who dare to think they can be priests, women and men who use contraception, women and men who are homosexual.
As a result of his anger at nuns, Lori flew to Rome and met with Cardinal Bernard F. Law - who, was whisked away to Rome in 2002, after church documents were revealed he, as Archbishop of Boston, had covered up sexual abuse committed by some Catholic priests within his archdiocese. (Still scratching my head on why he was appointed Cardinal in 2004).
Lori convinced Law to thoroughly investigate the nuns. In 2012, thePope issued an eight-page letter condemning the nuns and require they pay less attention to feeding the poor and more attention to demonizing: women who want to be priests, woman/men who use contraception and women/men who are homosexual. the Vatican accused the nuns of promoting "radical feminism."
Archbishop Lori gets to hold Court with a US House Judiciary Subcommittee
In 2011, Archbishop Lori also urged Congress to pass three bills that would go "along way in" controlling women.
Protect Life Act (H.R. 358)
Abortion Non-Discrimination Act (H.R. 361)
Respect for Rights of Conscience Act (H.R. 1179)
Archbishop Lori also asked for Congressional Investigation of HHS & USAID
In that same US House Judiciary Subcommittee hearing, Lori called for a congressional hearing or other investigation into "the illegal conditions that HHS and USAID are placing on religious providers of human services." He said new statutes might be necessary "to create new conscience protections, but more likely to create private rights of action for those whose rights under the existing protections have been violated."
You see, Archbishop Lori is pissed that
USAID provides condoms in an attempt to prevent the spread of AIDS.
The State Department’s U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) is increasingly requiring contractors, such as Catholic Relief Services (CRS), to provide comprehensive HIV prevention activities (including condom distribution), as well as full integration of its programs with reproductive health activities (including provision of artificial contraception) in a range of international relief and development programs.
Under this new requirement, of course, some of the most effective providers helping to prevent and treat AIDS in Africa and other developing nations will be excluded.
Sheesh ... here I actually pay taxes and I cannot even get a direct call back from my Senators nor my Representative yet this tax-exempt man gets the entire US House Judiciary Committee's Subcommittee on the Constitution to listen to his complaints.
Well, there you have it, the Ave Maria University's strangle-hold on women goes way beyond suing Obamacare. Tom Monaghan dreams of the day that he can control the lifestyle of all women, not just his employees.
