The Immokalee Conception

When its us trying to have a say its all "you cant boss us around" and when it them its "We just want the village raising the children". They want to be around us and have all the say and if we move away from that then they lose control. Then again theres alaways the "evil actually likes having good around and know what would happen without" line of reasoning.

I might manage to live in a cesspool of evil (like I do) without too much worry, but I'd fear for my children (if I had children).

I use to think I lived in a great area, and that I was fortunate not to live in a cesspool. But over the last few years, I realize that the cesspool is here, it's just well hidden. It's not so blatant like in some areas, but I don't fool myself in thinking it isn't here anymore. I'm called the "good Catholic" on the block. There are a lot more Catholic families all round me but they don't advertise as being one. I know they look at me as some kind of throw back from the 50's but I think that's just fine with me. I wish I was living in the 50's.

Does this area get hit hard by hurricanes? If not, count me in!

I am one of the people who has signed up for info on moving to Ave Maria town. I can't wait till it's built. It would be very nice to be in a place where you don't have to explain yourself all the time. Not that I'm trying to get out of evangelization, but I'm tired of being looked at like I have 9 heads when someone asks me how many kids we're going to have and I respond with, "As many as the Lord decides to send us."

I'm out. Call me a coward, but I'm not getting involved with another Monaghan enterprise until its proved itself with at least 20 years of stability. Maybe, when I'm ready to retire (in 45 years or so), if the town still exists and if it hasn't torn itself apart with scandal and infighting, I'll move there.

I agree with Kate. Tom seems to go into everything with pure intentions and then suddenly things change and it all gets muddled and a bit like megalomania.

I would wait a bit before I bought into this one.

I kind of like being looked upon as if I have 9 heads! Someday my prayer is there are so many people with multiple heads is won't be an issue. But, alas, being Catholic these days is one of the only LEGAL forms discrimination left. And, of course, having an all Catholic community definitely won't prevent a dark underbelly from forming. The confession lines will just be longer, hopefully.

In my case, it's not just fear, but sadly a growing sense of hatred - BOTH WAYS. One reason I left my former employment was a pet fear that the Church would end up being a proscribed organisation, and that I would end up being arrested accordingly by my colleagues. This fear increases every day, but at least there's few left in the Job who'd still remember me, and I will now bring no shame to the remainder.

But my growing hatred of all I see is definitely becoming a problem, along with the growing hatred of all I love by the world itself. It's a feeling of being trapped in it, at least until my poor Mother joins Dad (hopefully both in Heaven), and I can perhaps seriously consider a religious life for what remains of my own. My many wonderful non-Catholic friends don't understand it, of course. But they're good types and neve rlet me down like most nominal Catholics have (mainly cradle Catholics like myself - converts less so; they've had to FIGHT for their Faith).

Our Diocese is bereft of Prists, partially because our Bishop prefers women and has promoted them to as many positions of authority as he legally can. We get few new recruits, and our poor old Priests are dying like flies. Every time I visit the Priests section of the cemetary, I feel like I'm wasting my life. But at present I have little choice. As a kid, everyone thought I'd end up a Priest. So did I. But then the Church changed, and I didn't... And, until I found the Traditional Mass, I was a very angry and reluctant Catholic indeed.. I'm still angry, but at least now I have an "out" as it were, and there is now an obvious and actually visible Pope er I mean hope...!

Anyway, apologies for ranting. God bless you all...

I'm sure Mr. Monaghan has the noblest and holiest of intentions. That being said, I sure am glad that the first generations of Christians in the Roman Empire did not remove themselves from the larger society, which was surely at least as pagan, sensualist, materialist and shallow as our own. Those Christians stayed right where they were, and by the witness they gave in how they lived their own lives (and shed their blood when needed!) Christianity survived and spread. If they had all abandoned mainstream society for free-standing Christian enclaves, Christianity would today be a footnote in a history textbook.

I have a great respect for Tom Monaghan, but I wouldn't touch his New Eden with a barge pole. Catholics are always coming up with the idea that, if only we could get away from this wild wicked world and be surrounded by others like ourselves, we could somehow manage to leave original sin behind and live in perfect peace and harmony forever. In practice such communities invariably dissolve into backbiting and factions. Worse still, the confessional nature of the community tends to invest the widespread human frailty of spying on one's neighbors with a halo of virtue, because of course I only want to help my weaker brethren and strengthen them, and how can I do that if I don't know what they're up to? How long do you think it will be before the place is buzzing with speculation about whether the Smiths have grave reason for using NFP, or the Joneses are saying the Rosary every day, or Mrs. Brown is sufficiently submisive to Mr. Brown? I give it a year before they're all at each other's throats.

Yes, we do have hurricanes (check the news tonight), but you are safe from earthquakes in Florida.

Elinor makes a good point...I think we've got a good movie on our hands though.

Hmm, I follow the reasoning and the reservations (objections) voiced in this thread. Last year I went to see M. Knight Shalyman's The Village (yeah, I actually paid $6 or $7 to see it. The movie got me to thinking about whether one could equate the Ave Maria concept with the motivation of those families which formed "the village." At the time, I thought about the Society of St. John's medieval village concept (we all know what happened with them!) No, we cannot escape sin, we cannot escape original sin and we cannot build a garden of Eden on earth. This is what projects such as Ave Maria are often equated with (sometimes by people on all sides) - and there may be some well-meaning people who fail to see the folly of such a proposition. However, there can be no doubt that we can (and ought to) seek to build a Catholic culture (which may require epicenters such as Ave Maria) around us. In that vein, I would echo Andersen's thought: "the confessional lines will just be longer." There is some truth to that pithy and oversimplified bumper sticker catchphrase "Christians are not perfect, just forgiven!" The difference between a Catholic culture and the general culture (presently a Culture of Death) is that we acknowledge that there is such a thing as sin and that humans are capable of it - but that God is merciful and willing to forgive the repentant sinner AND that Human Beings are capable of sooo much more than sin. The Culture of death is so myopic it fails to recognize sin as sin, it fails to admit that anything could ever truly be wrong (except of course trying to live one's life formed in the Catholic faith - see Fran Kissling).

I remember reading the SSJ village overview - in it they spoke of a truly Catholic village - made up of saints and sinners. This is realistic - it is an admission of reality - but it does not mean that the surrounding culture must do everything possible to facilitate and even lead well-meaning people into the slavery of sin!

If Ave Maria can be a place where Catholics come together to live lives formed in the faith, to support each other, to live in a village (if not a world) where smut and contraceptions are not taken for granted - then I say it is worth a shot.

I do recognize that it will not be perfect (I think I live in "perfect" [the place on the Walgreen's commercials] where I have shriven only 1 sinner in the past two weeks - I just got here!) but it is worth a shot - if nothing else, it might become the first epicenter for developing a truly Catholic culture in our country.

Finally, some may make the argument that it is artificial (something like Celebration, FL - Walt Disney's foray into "new urbanism") and that argument may have some merit, but I don't know if it would be too different from the midieval towns which formed around Monasteries and Universities - the modern twist would be the planning - which is a hallmark of modern development. In that sense, every planned development is artificial.

That's also true...this isn't exactly a walled community

It could be a fabulous place where saints are made...most founders in the Church were considered a bit nutty by their peers...good on him, Gods Will be done!

It is sad how desperate people like Monaghan try to indentify themselves as being "Catholic" all the while soiling the faith while they over look and ignore so many facets of the faith. Very Sad indeed.

Toby,

Perhaps you could be a little more clear as to just what you are talking about. Your statement is ambiguous at best - please clarify.

Margaret and Elinor,

On the other hand, St. Antony of the Desert is a representative of the truth that sometimes about the only thing a person can do is to flee. I guess it's a matter of wisdom to know when to stay and fight and when to flee for your life. Where would we be if there had not been individuals who "fled to the desert"?

Of course, you may be right: people in that new town might eventually have to flee!

Didn't a bunch of Democrats want to flee up to where I am in Canada when Bush won the election?

I thought their values were strong enough to live in a pluralistic society without fear

I resent there being a black cat in your "hell" icon. I have two black cats (they are brothers) named Augustine and Thomas Aquinas. You perpetuate centuries-old stereotypes and I shall have to sic my cats on you pffffchhhhh

Leaving to one side the inevitable and speedy self-destruction of the community, I doubt they'll really be able to establish a pharmacy that sells no contraceptives. The courts will very likely shut them down.

So the courts would shut down a pharmacy that didn't bother to order a supply of contraceptives?

If anyone makes a complaint about it - and you may be certain that someone will - the courts very probably will rule against the pharmacy. There is a presumption that people ought to be able to buy any prescription at any pharmacy, and that it should not be in the shop's or the individual pharmacist's power to refuse to fill a prescription. (Remember the morning-after pill fusses, with occasional pharmacist's refusal to fill the prescription for four birth control pills, knowing what they would be used for? And this would involve not a particular employee's scruples, but an established policy of the management.) Mr. Monaghan knows a lot about the pizza business, but not much about the current stae of the law. If he'd pay the slightest attention to the advice of his law professors, he wouldn't walk into messes of this kind.

My black cat Benedict would join yours, Gerald.

How many priests are they planning to squirrel way in this one little town? Given that priests are restricted in regards to how many Masses they can celebrate in a day, it would seem that the Mass-every-hour concept means they intend to have a huge pool of them. Hardly seems fair for this one community to expect to have a large bank of priests to draw on, given that lots of places in the country are experiencing such a shortage. Are they content to deprive other Catholics of regular access to the Sacraments because of a lack of a priest in order to fulfill their Catholic Utopian dream?

Whether the pharmacy could be forced to sell contraceptives would depend on state law and how the state courts interpret it (two different things in Florida, as we may remember).

Much clearer, legally, is the fact that the city government of Ave Maria Town would not be allowed to take tiniest step -- not the tiniest, my dear -- toward keeping the town Catholic. This is a result of the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment, as currently interpreted.

Br. Clare-Vincent: Catholics who leave the world have vocations to do so. Most Catholics do not.

Nor could realtors, despite being private (and therefore not directly subject to the First Amendment) do anything to make sure only Catholics live there, or even to make it more likely. This is because of the Fair Housing Act of 1968.

In response to Nonny's question: Florida is FULL of retired priests! In fact, many parishes in various areas (Naples is no exception) have multiple concelebrants at daily Mass because of the ridiculous surplus of retired priests! If someone from FL is reading this and I am mistaken, please correct me. I do think it would be possible to have an hourly Mass at the oratory with a different priest celebrating each hour. This could probably be done simply with the few priests who will be attached to the University - but the huge number of retired priests would also help.

In response to Cacciaguida: True, there is nothing the town of Ave Maria could do to guarantee complete Catholic occupancy. That misses the point: I don't think they are seeking to achieve a legal exclusion of all non-Catholics, but they do seek to create a Catholic ethos which permeates the development. As with any town anywhere in the world, anybody would be most welcome to live there, but it would be especially appealing to Catholics and this intentional town would have a particular Catholic-ness about it.

Fr. Totton-

Tell those retired priests to get off their sacerdotal backsides, come to a military base, and do something to alleviate our own priest shortage. In all of Camp Lejeune, I think we have one chaplain. Twentynine Palms had two.

Johathan, I echo your frustration! There was a collective groan among the older priests in my diocese when the bishop raised the minimum retirement age to 70 (unless there is some serious medical issue at concern). To add to the frustration, I would guess (an informed guess) that a good number of those retired priests are retired career military!

The situation in many dioceses is delicate because so many bishops refuse to release their own priests for military service (lack of genersoity on the part of those who are asking for generous hearts among those with priestly vocations!)

Realy good site!