Would you say that trying to impose a human ideology with atheistic-flavored themes by force of law is doomed to failure? That appears to be our choice.
Is it? I'm skeptical.
I don't want to sound like I'm agreeing with Kissling, but I'm not convinced that this is a good idea. We are supposed to be "in the world, but not of the world". Creating an exclusive Catholic town doesn't seem "catholic" to me. It smacks of a "circling the wagons" approach to life that seems to contradict the salt-of-the-earth mission that we are called to.
Haven't there been 100% Catholic towns in Europe and elsewhere for centuries? All of them got their start at some point. Maybe not with the help of a billionaire but if Mr. Levitt can create his new towns, why not Monaghan? I understand that intiial demand or at least strong interest is there. A long as it doesn't become a catholic ghetto...hopefully the presence of a university will keep that from happening.
I am skeptical that it will work also, but I don't understand the "disturbing" part. If people don't want to live by those rules they don't have to move there.
It would be different if he had taken an existing city and forced it to work according to Catholic rules (whatever they are), but this is a new place, so you have to actively move there in order to be subject to those rules.
The real problem for opponents is what this could give rise to: other cities asking to have the same rules? Perhaps success?
Catholics are not Mormons. We aren't trying to establish some sort of earthly heaven, a city-on-a-hill utopia. We live in the world, rubbing elbows with its people. How different would things have turned out -- for the worse -- if the early Christians had walled themselves off in their own cities rather than struggling for three centuries to change Roman society from within? You can't be leaven if you live only with your own kind.
It seems to me that we are currently living in a culture that is diametrically opposed to the teachings of the Catholic Church. Catholics are being told they have to prescribe contraceptives, hospitals have to perform abortions, our tax dollars pay for Planned Parenthood, the federally regulated airwaves are allowed to produce viciously anti-Catholic propaganda. Newspapers publish rumors, innuendos, lies and anti-Catholic agitprop and nobody bats an eye.
o A major US paper (Pittsburgh Tribune Review) published the following: U.S. policy is being shaped by ‘Rome and these bishops’; ‘We now have five male Catholic justices on the U.S. Supreme Court,’ thus creating an unseemly ‘concentration of power’; ‘Samuel Alito has been confirmed and installed, and this behind-the-scenes plan [of the Catholic Church] should get much of the credit’; the bishops are ‘infiltrating and manipulating the American democratic process at national, state and local levels’; and the bishops have ‘taken over the Republican Party.’
o California State University, San Bernardino wants to censor a student group, the Christian Student Association, because a) the group has a constitution that references sexual morality, and b) it wants to restrict leadership positions to Christians.
o In New York, Attorney General Eliot Spitzer unleashed his lawyers in an effort to stop a pro-adoption group from suing the state on First Amendment grounds: the group, Children First Foundation, wants ‘Choose Life’ license plates to be legal. Spitzer wants the phrase censored.
o HARTFORD -- Some state lawmakers are on a collision course with Connecticut Roman Catholics over the so-called "morning after pill." The legislature's Public Health Committee is drafting a bill that would require all Connecticut hospitals, including the four Roman Catholic hospitals in the state, to provide emergency contraception to rape victims.
I think we, as Catholics, will have to make a decision some day whether we are Americans or we are Catholics and that we’ll have to make that decision sooner rather than later.
I consider myself an orthodox Catholic, but would have zero interest in moving to a town like this, which smacks a bit of a bunker mentality, IMO.
However, I truly don't get all the criticism and hand-wringing over this venture. There was a story in Newsweek within the past month that focused in a large part over whether the pharmacies in Ave Maria town would offer contraceptives:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/1143.../site/newsweek/
I mean, it's not like the town is located in the middle of the Sahara. If someone was so inclined, couldn't they hop on a bus to Naples or anywhere on the Interstate and pick up their Trojans at the vast number of establishments that would only be too happy to stock tham?
Not to mention the fact that it's unlikely there will be a huge demand in a town and university filled with orthodox Catholics. Pharmacy owners have rights to follow their conscience and structure their inventory accordingly, don't they? I guess not.
Bottom line, it's a free country and if someone wants to buy a McMansion in Catholicland, fine with me.
My brother won't willingly go to a restaurant if it gives the impression of having been put together at a board meeting.
Sean, I thought you said Catholics are hot Mormons.
I fail to see why this is particularly different than, for instance, the Amish enclaves in PA. We don't see the ACLU lobbying to force Amish apocatharies to stock electric vibrators - something that people would have a 'right' to purchase, under the ACLU idea of what is a right.
As for Ave Maria, FL: I might not want to live there, but like I've enjoyed my trips the Pennsylvania Dutch, and I'd love to go visit - it seems it would be a place of retreat.
I envision it might end up being like a town-sized cloister, except with families as well as religious and consecrated lay. It's certainly a noble experiment. Hopefully, they'll have an Indult mass, then I'm totally going... 
People jump through hoops to purchase homes in "planned communities" with fake town squares and carefully coordinated architecture (ala Seaside FL), or even to simply buy a home in a good school district. And nobody bats an eye. But this guy decides to build a a group of homes with amenities to attract like-minded buyers and all of a sudden it marks the end of civilization as we know it.
I don't get it. I thought choice was a good thing. I mean, that's what Frances K. has been telling us all along, right?
I kinda like the idea, but I don't like Florida. Let me know when a planned Catholic community opens in the mountains of Western North Carolina!
I fail to see why this is particularly different than, for instance, the Amish enclaves in PA.
Not much different, fundamentally. That's the problem. Question: what would Catholic arts and crafts look like (a la Amish art)? Handmade plaid skirts for the gals? Jars of homemade fish breading? (Would the baker sell "non-licit" communion recipies out the back door, for the right price?) Hand carved bingo cards?
Kathy, get thee to an eye doctor. 
I remember receiving a small newspaper from an order of priests that wanted to try to establish the same type of town. I can't remember who they were but I never heard of it coming about. I think I was living in Maryland at the time...
Front Royal, VA is an example of Catholics coming in and changing the flavor of a community.
People regularly choose a community based on all kinds or criteria. It could be the schools or the crime rate or the make-up of the community. I was repeatedly told not to move to Waldorf, MD because it was 'too dark' (Waldorf is 32% black). Well, I moved there anyway and it is a great place to live and my kids have great (black) friends in our neighborhood. In fact, I think my kids are the only white kids on the street. Other people choose not to live in Waldorf. It's their choice. If I had it to do over again, I would move to a town with no strip bars and sex shops, regardless of the racial makeup. When your 9 year old sees "Novelties, Toys" in the window as you're waiting for the red light...it's kind of awkward.
This is yet another case of sad, misguided Catholics buying into the Puritan Myth: hook, line, and sinker. If you think that your neighbors are not pure enough, then pull up all your roots and move somewhere else, somewhere where the pure can start afresh, in brand nieeew houses, without the ugly stain of someone else's sin to deal with.
Oh, your daughter, who was horridly catechised to think that the GOP is the magisterium rebels and leaves the church? Now, obviously, you cannot allow her to inherit your house in Monaghanstadt, because she would be ritually impure. Now what?
I am all in favor of Catholic cities and towns. Let's start with San Francisco, Chicago, New York. If the Rome of the Caesars could eventually become Catholic, quit whining and get to work.
And leave this cursed neo-Puritan "Fresh, Niieeeeew Start" idea on the trash heap where it belongs.
"I'm skeptical a lasting community can be built on the basis of the vision of one rich man."
My instinct is Mark is probably right on that. But could a lasting community could be build with 100 not-so-rich families?:
dang.
i meant to include this link (via Eric Scheske's blog):
http://www.chesterbel.net
Erik, etc.:
For years, I've been told that if I don't like what's on a particular network, don't watch it. I've been told that if I don't like the magazines on display at a store, don't shop there. If you don't like the shops on a particular street, don't drive down that street. Don't like the movies, don't go to that movie theater.
So a rich guy comes along (do I detect a tad bit of envy?) and wants to build a community where I can take my kids anywhere, I can watch the movies, I can go to the drug store, I can go to the grocery store and now you're trying to tell me I can't move there because it doesn't fit your idea of what a Catholic should be like?
There is only one thing I have to say to you: you're Hitler.
There, I said it. I'm glad I said it. I'll send you a postcard from Naples!
I would not be interested in living here myself, but who are we to attack anyone who does for having a "bunker" mentality, or refusing to "be in the world" or "rub elbows with sinners?" For the love of Mike, religious communuities have been doing this for two millenia. Where do you all think the Little Flower lived, or various enclosed monks etc?
There is room in this world for all kinds of people and neighborhoods. I think it is cold and uncharitable to criticize and mock people who want to live with other Catholics. People make all kinds of choices. It always amazes me when people think it's their way or the highway.
There are an infinity of ways to live. The vicissitudes of life hit us all (disease, suffering, death of loved ones, whatever); life is VERY SHORT (it may seem long now, but wait til you are at the wake of someone you love), and we are all just trying to make it through the night. This is their way, and they no more deserve contempt or ridicule than the anchorites, monastics, or utopians of history.
The bunker-mentality charge is bunkum.
But I'm pretty sure this is just another rich guy's vanity project doomed to end in either lawsuits or neglect.
Erik, I don't think it's the purity problem--any more than homeschooling is. There is simply a practical question of how to live in freedom. Especially with children. You may think that the rough and tumble of cosmopolitan life is good for people. But there's no way, in the current climate, that it is good for kids.
Monoghan isn't the only one:
http://www.chesterbel.net/goals.html
Oops, didn't realize Brian had linked to Chesterbel as well.
(By the way, they could use a decent website. I don't think many people will take them seriously with that design)
I thought all true Christians were going to move to South Carolina!
I don't think it matters whether this is the brain child of a rich man or of a bunch of poor men pooling resources. In the end it will become a matter of thought control. Not even behavior control but thought control. Those who lack the economic resources to escape will become the victims and not necessarily victims of the rich but maybe just of the other poor.
Model communities may at best serve the needs of one or possibly two generations. Will the Catholic children choose to stay when they grow up? Will they be like "good" Amish children? If this Catholic town lasts long enough it will become another Florida retirement center. I feel sorry for anyone who may be stuck there with doubts about what the majority of fellow inhabitants consider the infallible teaching of the Magisterium.
Model communities may at best serve the needs of one or possibly two generations.
Well, that's one or two generations with a better life than they might otherwise have had.
I think it is unfair to dismiss this as just another rich guy's vanity. That said, I think it is doomed to fail for practical reasons. And when it fails we will be lucky to dodge the obligatory bad press at how Catholics can't get along, etc.... Mark is right -- this is well-intended utopia and will fail for sure unless it has very modest objectives, which I doubt can be managed.
now you're trying to tell me I can't move there because it doesn't fit your idea of what a Catholic should be like?
No, I am simply pointing out that what you are doing is not really all that Catholic, and that, even if it were, in today's climate, it is doomed to failure. But when you get to Naples (a region with probably the most overvalued real estate in America, setting up Tomasmonaghanstadt for a whole other level of litigation when the whole thing falls apart), have fun. You may even send me a post card.
As for the notion that today's cities are "in no way good for kids" that might be true. Kids belong in farms, but I know plenty of smart, orthodox Catholic children who thrive in cities. Suburbs, on the other hand, I avoid like the plague. Dangerous places. All those school shootings and the like.
If you think that your neighbors are not pure enough, then pull up all your roots and move somewhere else,
So if you lived in a house with a crack den on your left, a group of exhibitionists on your right, and a sex shop down the street, would you stay put to avoid taunts of "ritual impurity?" Or would you make the sensible choice and move?
Sean, what would Catholic art look like? Perhaps the Sistene Chapel?
I probably wouldn't live there because I don't like the heat much. Start something like this in Idaho and I will seriously look.
It isn't the bunker mentality. But my wife at home with the kids has no one in the neighborhood. If there was a like minded friend next door or over the back fence, how wonderful the support system would be.
I am out in the world, but sometimes she likens her "job" to being in a dungeon.
Nothing wrong with wanting to be surrounded by like minded people. My friends are mostly Catholic guys cuz I don't feel compelled to swear, leer at women and talk about porn. Am I being elitist?
The Ave Maria town project reminds me in many ways of the Soul City, NC development. 30 years or so after Soul City started, there's one little Baptist Church and empty paved roads that go nowhere. That's probably what will happen with Ave Maria.
http://www.roadsideamerica.com/
t...ractionNo==1772
> "I don't get it. I thought choice was a good thing. I mean, that's what Frances K. has been telling us all along, right?"
Touche. Except that pro-aborts want freedom of choice without having to move house. That's why they think the world would end if Roe were overturned and (on any plausible jurisprudence) the States were permitted, but not required, to ban abortion on their soil. Yes, of course Connecticut and California would offer FSLAOD, funded by a special tax on church lands no doubt, but that's NOT GOOD ENOUGH. You have the right to get an abortion in your home town, for Kissler and others. (Strangely enough, many of them seem extremely uneasy about the idea of Canada and Europe becoming "Americani[s]ed" and losing their original values.)
The purpose of the US Constn (ie, entrenched and judicially enforceable) has come full circle. Originally, judicial review was meant to protect federalism, the right to "vote with your feet". Then it got into holding both State and federal govts to the same standards of non-discrimination against racial minorities. But now, judicial review has become a way of forcing all States and localities to abide by the values of New York and New England.
Me, I'm a federalist. As long as a State isn't holding some subset of its population in indentured servitude (ie, preventing them from leaving), they should be permitted to ban, within their borders, whatever conduct their majority judges immoral. Catholic enclaves can ban use of contraceptives, Baptist enclaves can ban alcohol, Amish enclaves can ban buttons and artificial methods of telephoning, Mormon enclaves can ban coffee. Don't like it? Don't live there. Show you're serious about what you demand, so you don't just complain.
Got this link from Jimmy Akin's blog. I read about this area years ago. http://www.staroftheseavillage.c...ges/9/
index.htm
Hmm. The project is doomed either way, whether it takes human frailty into account or not. I mean, doomed if the man thinks that he can create a Catholic community that is *truly* Catholic, in some special sense. I mean, he can introduce and require that citizens live by Catholic laws, but if that were enough to make a Catholic community, there would have been no Reformation.
Even monasteries and new religious orders have tended to decline over time after the enthusiasm of the first founders was gone.
Original sin taints all that we do. And unfortunately, its power seems to be cumulative: worse when long-term plans involving many people are at stake. Try to keep it out of a community altogether, and you'll almost certainly create a dictatorship. Try to accommodate it, even in trivial ways, and you'll very soon have what we have now anyway - the World.
Caroline, that's an interesting point. Could the environment end up stifling people so much that the next generation can't stand living in CatholicLand - or might they just naturally burst beyond its borders no matter how they feel about where they were raised? Could the irony end up being that the founders cause a stronger rejection of the Faith than what we see in those immersed in the present culture? This topic kind of reminds me of the movie "The Village."
if you lived in a house with a crack den on your left, a group of exhibitionists on your right, and a sex shop down the street
You see, Stephen, I would not live in such a situation, and I live in Oakland, so it would certainly be something that could be arranged, should I choose it, but I don't. Instead I live twelve blocks (in a not very well off neighborbood) from one of the best parish churches in America. It was not designed by Tom Mohaghan, by the way.
Do all of you dreamy escapists really think that your neighborhood is worse than the realities of first century Rome?
Also, think about the sort of Catholics who would be attracted to such a thing. Most of them would not want to live with the rest of them anyway. No thanks. We will have our Catholic communities when we have earned them the hard way, by evangelizing. Until then, lay aside the silly escape plans. They will not work, and, even worse, they are fundamentally Protestant to their core.
I'm thinking catacombs. Really, "the world" is such an enormous part of our modern lives, that it's perfectly fine for us to live in community with one another - in order to have the strength to keep our faith when we are in contact with others.
The early Christians, as I understand it, gathered in the catacombs in order to gain strength (in safety) to go back out and witness.
And as a SAHM, I would really like to have some people at home during the day too.
Looks as if I'm going to be there this spring to give a poetry reading with Joe Pearce. He says he's going to show me around the campus.
Looking forward to it. As for the community, we like where we live now. But if I could teach there - who knows?
Interesting.
There are any number of orthodox Jewish enclaves, especially in New York, with their own shops, schools, customs, etc. that seem to be very successful. There is an article in wikipedia about the Hassidic village of Kiryas Joel http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kiryas_Joel
I'm pretty happy living in an area that is a thorough mix of Jewish-Christian and old established families - recent immigrants. The idea of moving to an ultra-Catholic town doesn't appeal to me very much right now, but it would be nice to know that such a place does exist, and that if I wanted to visit there, and make a retreat, for example, that I would be welcomed. It might seem like "coming home".
I wish them well, and hope they succeed. I will pray for them.
Me too.
i'm an ave grad student and therefore have a bit of an interest in this whole experiment. i've tended to view AM-town as an outgrowth of the university, a "college town." and like most college towns, it would pick up the flavor of the unversity's ideals. this one happens to be far more explicit in its community formation. the only "laws" i've heard are against pornography, contraceptives, and abortion. sounds pretty basic to me.
the most disturbing part of am-town in my opinion is that it's contributing to urban sprawl and the destruction of farm land - not to mention the architecture is a bit horrendous. this is such a paradox to me given the intellectual commitment of the faculty to recovering truth, beauty, and goodness. i wonder sometimes if the "higher ups" ever give a thought to how the physical space of the university/town might enforce or undo the intellectual values they're trying so hard to instill. it's thoroughly un-catholic to be compartmentalist, after all.
Marion, I was thinking the same thing. Born and raised in Brooklyn, I can tell you how Orthodox Jews have completely bought into neighborhoods, revamped them so they can live an ultra-Orthodox lifestyle without any outside interference (try buying something on a Saturday on 13th Ave...actually, try buying anything from some Orthodox Jewish stores; without the headcovering, you won't be waited on.) And, because they have so many children, these changes are taking place with lightening speed.
Does it work? For them, it's the answer to my old question, as I used to ride the bus in the city, looking at these kids: How do their parents manage that? How do they raise kids that are so in-your-face Jewish, that their clothes, their names, their schools, their friends, their jobs, their spouses, are completely counter-culteral? These kids don't even smoke cigarettes, while their contemporaries are having abortions. How do you get little Schlomo Goldberg to wear payess on the bus with hip-hopper, foul-mouthed, pants-falling-down, sex-having, drug-taking contemporary Brooklyn kids? And yeah, sometimes they get their asses beat, but the kids stay Jewish. It always impressed me.
The other by-product of that kind of life is the community strength (because of their religious beliefs) make them a rock-solid force to be dealt with, so they have developed incredible political clout. They have favors, waivers, extras granted to them all the time, in their schools, healthcare, building zones, etc. etc. I'm envious; I wish I had that in the Catholic community.
And for those who say we don't need any Catholic community other than our own neighborhoods, well, then what are we doing hanging around here?
KH: Amen.
If Dan concentrates on Building the University as a solid Catholic Educational enviroment and that succeds, I dont see any reason why the town would fail.
Its not that big of a school & town.
They say Stubenville is like that.
I dont see what the problem is and why it would be considered a utopian vision.
Fitz,
You see, the problem is with the "solid Catholic educational environment." There is no real intention of doing that. They have a PhD program in Theology. Think about the implications of that for a few minutes.
> "They will not work, and, even worse, they are fundamentally Protestant to their core.
Yep, that's Protestants for you, fleeing the corrupt world, opting out of thr struggle instead of staying on to Christianise society. What was the name of that Pure Colony of Ye Elect Saints that Cromwell and Calvin founded in Rhode Island? And those early Protestant monks and desert fathers, what was their sanctuary called again -- you know, that one where even today women aren't allowed to enter?
KH - what you describe is a necessity, because the Dark Age of the 21st Century is blowing its foul breath in our faces.
Kill your TV.
Two problems. Big ones.
First, a town can't ban contraceptives or abortion anymore than a state can under present constitutional law. What kind of legal advice are they getting?
Second, it won't be a truly Catholic town, but a privileged petting zoo, unless there are lots and lots of poor people and lepers for the Catholics to care for. Where's all their housing? Where's the biggest soup kitchen in the state?
http://www.brama.com/stgeorge/ny.html
take your pick, or at least research a bit its been happening for a long time.
I think the problem with Monaghan's vision is that they're all Americans. Amish people are Amish, after all. He's trying to get people to live their entire lives in opposition to their deeply held, socially inculcated values. In order for something like this to work it's got to be conservative.
That said, I think the true Christian response to living in our awful culture will be more along the lines of this:
The New Monasticism: In Durham’s Walltown, a Covenant Community
this: School(s) for Conversion: 12 Marks of a New Monasticism
and this: 12 Marks of a New Monasticism
This is far more interesting to me because it doesn't smack of separation (to which only a very few, like monks and hermits, are called).
This is not a new idea nor a bad one. Back in 1977 a group of Jewish people of like mind called the Satmars did create a town, Kiryas Joel. Yes they have had some "legal" problems but the town is still there and thriving.
We Calvinists tried this once. It's called Massachusetts . . .
We Calvinists tried this once. It's called Massachusetts . . .
Kyrie eleison.
Well, I don't know if this will work or not, but it's a free country and if Mr. Monaghan wants to try it, well God bless him. It will be OK if people don't wall themselves up and do evangelize those nearby and help the poor, etc. The medieval monasteries were the welfare offices of their day.
There has always been a "utopian" strain in American life and people periodically try community life based on religion in various ways, Utah, the Bruderhoff communities, Amish areas of Pa, Kiryas Joel, etc. Some of them work and some of them don't. I certainly wish them well but I hope they like bugs and hot, humid weather!
I was born in Front Royal, Virginia and live about 50 miles away. (I was not raised Catholic, converted later long after moving away from Front Royal.) It is still like any other small Virginia town, except there are a lot more Catholic institutions there and orthodox Catholics seem to find the area and the parish agreeable for family and Catholic life. It's not utopia though, not by any means. A friend of mine who is a counselor in Winchester says there is a lot of drug and alcohol abuse and domestic violence there. Well, that gives the Catholics of Front Royal their mission. And like most of Virginia, it is still an overwhelmingly Protestant area. I don't think the Catholics are more than 5 to 10% of the population of Warren County, but that could have changed.
I have a feeling the Ave Maria project is too "top down" and artificial to work but I hope I'm wrong.
Has anyone considered that Tom Monaghan is a devout Catholic and just maybe he prayed about this and sought God's direction in this matter before jumping into it?
Doomed for failure, separationist, vainity of some rich guy, Un or even anti-catholic?
I pray that he did seek God's will,
and I'll give him the benefit of the doubt and assume he did.
Whew, Catholics can be a tough crowd sometimes.
God Bless Tom Monaghan!!!
The U.S. has a long history of "utopian experiments"; I was raised near New Harmony, Indiana, and my mother comes from Lancaster Co, PA, so I got the history from both barrels. I would agree that much of what Thomas Monaghan tries to accomplish is flawed by a top-down, counter-subsidiarity approach, and that good intentions often count for nothing when institutions are not properly structured. That being said, however, it is a noble effort, despite the secularists' nose getting (more) out of joint at the thought of the Terrors of Religion being inflicted on people who never desired to live, work or shop in the place. There's a way around it, though. A citizen's committee is perfectly free to publish a list of businesses that fail to adhere to certain standards with respect to people's beliefs -- the ACLU does it all the time. Similarly, people can get together and endorse a business that adheres to certain standards, even give out some kind of certification. UL and Good Housekeeping do this. Nobody is forced to patronize or not patronize such a business; forbidding the publication of a list of businesses that adhere would infringe on freedom of speech, I assume. Ergo, nothing should prevent Thomas Monaghan from forming a group that endorses businesses in the community that meet certain standards.
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