I was done making comments on Intentional Communities ... until I read this article on some millionaire building a Catholic community from scratch. No x-rated cable, no condoms, no birth control pills. Who made these rules? The millionaire.
Tom Monaghan, the devout Catholic who founded Domino's Pizza and is now bankrolling most of the initial $400 million cost of the project, Ave Maria is the culmination of a lifetime devoted to spreading his own strict interpretation of Catholicism. Though he says nonbelievers are welcome, Monaghan clearly wants the community to embody his conservative values. He controls all the commercial real estate in town (along with his developing partner, Barron Collier Cos.) and is asking pharmacies not to carry contraceptives.
The future needs, nay, demands small footprint, eco-village communities. Government must set policy that evolves existing community toward this goal. Private club communities created by millionaires does not bode well for the future of humanity. This new community is a waste as it could have been a show case for the future of humanity rather than a holding tank for those awaiting the end of the world.
Ha! Yes, that a great point. I deal with traditionalists on my wife's side of the family and they vary in bad opinion on our position arguing from 'God will take care of us' to 'it is all just a secular liberal nihilist plot to believe we will run out of resources.'
ReplyDeleteYour hostility towards this very idealistic commitment is predicatable enough. What harm could this guy possibly be doing by trying to set up a little town. Developers do this all the time. And you obviously don't have to live there or go anywhere near it if you don't agree with his faith. But what is your problem? Why is anti-Catholic prejudice so completely acceptable in the US?
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