Ave Maria, Naples

AVE MARIA UNIVERSITY, Sept. 2

— Ave Maria University opened in Naples, Fla., Sept. 2 with a Mass attended by the 101 students at its temporary campus.

The university was established by Domino's Pizza founder Tom Monaghan, who has devoted himself to Catholic causes since he sold the pizza chain in 1998.

Classes will be held in a development in North Naples until the school's $220-million permanent campus is completed in the fall of 2006.

The new Ave Maria College in Florida initiated classes this month in a converted assisted-living center.

Monaghan “anticipates 5,000 students — and a Division I football program — on an 850-acre campus by 2006,” the newspaper said.

As for the school's mission, “We are very clear about our Catholic identity,” said Nicholas Healy, the school's president. “If that distinguishes us from other Catholic schools, so be it.”

Catholic Competition

THE WASHINGTON TIMES, Sept. 10 — Increasing numbers of Catholic students “are gravitating toward a new breed of college.

Colleges “that aims to attract students who place God's truth, moral absolutes and loyalty to Pope John Paul II” above parties and winning football programs, the Washington daily reported.

The trend — including five new “orthodox” Catholic colleges in some phase of development — has not gone unnoticed by a Catholic education establishment that is beginning to feel the heat of competition.

So said Michael James, associate executive director of the Association of Catholic Colleges and Universities.

“We're in a tight marketplace for our capital campaigns and endowments,” James said. “It's a concern that potential givers might migrate over [to the new colleges].”

Bishops Speak

CBN.COM, Sept. 11 — The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops has filed a brief with the U.S. Supreme Court that supports the cause of Joshua Davey.

He's a student at Assemblies of God-affiliated Northwest College in Spokane, Wash., who was denied a Washington state scholarship because he was a theology major.

Davey's case is on the high court's docket this fall.

The Web site of the Christian Broadcasting Network reported that, after Davey filed suit, a U.S. District Court ruled in the state's favor.

But a panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals overturned that decision and called the state's policy unconstitutional.

Washington is one of about 30 states that have “Blaine Amendments,” which bar the use of state funds for the support of religious education. The 19th-century amendments, historians agree, were motivated by anti-Catholicism.

Mass Banned

THE ASSOCIATED PRESS, Aug. 29 — Marquette University has decided to halt a weekly Mass at its dental school because its new facility was constructed primarily with government money, the AP reported.

The decision was made without a prior controversy or student complaint. It followed an inquiry about the weekly Mass from the Wisconsin Department of Administration's chief legal counsel.

Marquette gained public dollars for the building because it educates the majority of Wisconsin's dentists and is the only dental school in the state.

The dental school has its own Jesuit chaplain and Masses continue to be celebrated at chapels elsewhere on the Catholic campus.

Joseph Cullen writes from New York.