The Miami New Times wrote an article blasting Ave Maria, the University and the town. It’s actually one of the most hilariously biased ledes I’ve ever read.
Marielena Stuart stood in the middle of a quiet street, 120 miles across the swamp from Miami, and stared down the black plastic barrel of a news camera. Behind her loomed a monstrous church, its 100-foot orange-brick façade shimmering like scales in the nighttime spotlights. Stuart glanced up at its one round window — a Cyclops’s unblinking eye gazing out over the strange, tiny town of Ave Maria — and shuddered.
And accompanying this “news” piece is this picture, which one can assume is supposed to represent the Christians living in Ave Maria.
Don’t even bother reading the rest of the piece. I made it about a thousand words in and gave up just out of boredom. There wasn’t one voice that supported anything or anyone in the college. Not one. Here’s the thing reporters and editors have to understand – if your bias is as obvious as this hatchet job, we’re not going to read you. You’ve gotta’ do a better job covering it up. Just a little.
October 18, 2011 at 5:33 pm
I thought you were kidding about that photo. Not only were you NOT kidding, they make sure that picture is on every one of the 5 pages of the article.
October 18, 2011 at 5:43 pm
If you visit there yourself you see it's just a small town with many generations living together a quiet, faith-centered lifestyle. It's a simple concept, attempting to focus on beauty, truth and goodness. Folks like these from Miami seem to choose to mock rather than simply 'live and let live' or even try to appreciate the life that Ave Maria residents have CHOSEN for themselves.
October 18, 2011 at 5:49 pm
Wow. I'm not laughing. My daughter went to the summer program at Ave Maria, took a Latin immersion course and a course on Tolkien and Lewis with two amazing professors and some of the nicest, smartest kids you could ever dream of as friends for your kid, and absolutely fell in love with the campus – Everglades and all. She has her hopes pinned on going there again, and maybe for college. I just can't wait for her virulently Christophobic relatives (some of whom are Florida residents) to see this… We are living in sad times. 🙁
October 18, 2011 at 6:12 pm
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October 18, 2011 at 6:17 pm
Hey Matt remember when you posted about just going away and starting your own Catholic commune? I think your prayers have been answered in Ave Maria.
It is good that the world ridicules them. They must be faithful to the Lord who foretold just that. This is providential as I am planning to relocate to FL to add more days to my life and more life to my days; the sun helps a lot. Anyway, I was getting turned off by the Muslims in Orlando then I saw this.
I saw their official site and it looks perfect for raising my 5 small children.
October 18, 2011 at 7:05 pm
dh and I are steubenville grads. we hoped that our oldest son would be interested in a Newman Guide School. He visited Belmont, Benedictine, Steubenville, and Ave Maria. Ave Maria surprised us all. The faculty is top notch!Our son received much more scholarship and grant money than from any of the other schools. He is playing football (haven't won a game yet, but hey' they're mostly freshman!) as a walk on and loving it all. Yes, we read "Ave Watch" for years, yes, we know Tom M. from back in the days we lived in Ann Arbor. Yes, we know all about the Law School as a family member was an early graduate. It's a great school!
October 18, 2011 at 7:33 pm
They must have read too much Lovecraft!
Shalom
Hermann
October 18, 2011 at 7:37 pm
My sister is a graduate from the Michigan campus of Ave Maria (now moved to FL)- so my big problem with Ave is that they took the time and money from students for an unaccredited degree- I hope they can rectify this
October 18, 2011 at 8:10 pm
I think that upon further reading you'll find the article is very well researched. The goofy picture is unfortunate, but Charles Rice and Fr. Fessio are being honest about the Founder. Great profs. like Janet Smith couldn't take the crazy either and stayed behind in MI. Thankfully, great things sometimes rise from difficult beginnings.
October 18, 2011 at 8:32 pm
my sister got a full ride to the Law School (Ann Arbor). The University is now accredited. I'm glad that Tom is no longer at the helm. I suppose it is a risk, as is any newer school. We are blown away by the courses our freshman is taking there, compared to our freshman year at Steubenville. We've had a few conversations with the dean of Faculty- he's a brilliant man, imho….
October 18, 2011 at 8:49 pm
@ Herminator,
Wouldn't the church's facade be glittering "squamously", if it was Lovecraft?
(And whoa, an actually appropriate use of "squamous"—it means "scaly".)
October 18, 2011 at 11:22 pm
I agree with Blackrep. Apart from the unfortunate choice of photo, this looks like a legitimate story to me. One that's been around for a while and as a result seems like old news to some of us, but it's a legitimate story. Surely Prof. Rice, as well as numerous other devout Catholic critics of Tom Monaghan, is someone to be taken seriously.
October 18, 2011 at 11:52 pm
This is from the bio of the photographer which yells out "ax to grind"
Tabatha Mudra was born on the side of the road in south eastern Iowa in the early 1980's and later adopted into a family of pious Estonian Vagabonds. Unscathed by the confines of Estonian dogma as a child,
October 19, 2011 at 12:03 am
I agree that the story is very unbalanced. But some of the content, if true, I had not really heard before… Also, if Charles Rice thinks they behaved unconcionably, they probably did. And we knew they fired Fr Fessio…not a good sign. I was considering going there for grad school but was a little disturbed by all the controversy, and then when I saw pictures, it seemed to really be a condo town for the wealthy or something, which certainly does not appeal to me personally at all…I wouldn't fit in with that!! I know someone whose family members bought a house down there, so I only hope they aren't having trouble because of it.
October 19, 2011 at 12:04 am
However, I think it should be our right to establish, somehow, places where Catholics can live without any porn, etc., if they all so desire. After all, some orthodox Jews have their own town in NY somewhere, don't they?
October 19, 2011 at 12:37 am
There is the bias in the article that ridicules Catholics and impugns the motives of Mr. Monaghan. But there are also some pretty serious allegations made. Why did the editors weaken the credibility of an investigative journalist by adding that insulting photograph? There is merit in Mr Mohaghan's intention and, possibly, some serious failings in the realization of that intent.
Media bias doesn't help in getting the facts out.
I inferred from the article that building a community with a high level of integrity must reach beyond Tom Monaghan's vision and be embraced by all concerned.
October 19, 2011 at 1:09 am
Holy mackerel. In all my years of copy editing secular religion stories (most of which were biased to some degree), this one is one of the worst I have ever seen. They spilled a lot of CMYK in the production of this monstrosity. The fact that the graphics and photo departments were in on it as well suggests that this is top-down project. High ranking editors were involved in the planning and execution of this story, and I'd take that to the bank.
October 19, 2011 at 1:35 am
It reads like the opening of a popular novel – a thriller. I think the "journalist" must have a hankering to use his creative writing skills! Lynda
October 19, 2011 at 2:07 am
Sounds from the article and from the comments that things are looking up at AMU. Good.
The "oratory" matter does not bode well for the church in that town and region. Monaghan the pastor-picker? What non-sense! Good for the bishop to quash that.
Filter the piece a bit (it's easy enough with this writer) and what you get is a chronicle of disturbing leadership. You could staff a highly respectable catholic think tank with the folks Monaghan has forced out.
As for the writer's critique of the oratory design: spot-on! That thing is a travesty and there is nothing that can be done to fix it.
October 19, 2011 at 2:08 am
Even assuming the information and quote in the article to be true and not taken horribly out of context, the picture, lede, hyperbolic writing style scream hit job. If the journalist is imparting accurate information, he does himself no favors by employing a writing style straight out of a horror movie.
But if the intent of this article is to slime a faithful Catholic area as being weird and crazy, it served its purpose.
I wrote a piece today on articles like this, and how the media sees the Church. Providential timing, I guess.
http://catholicgraymatters.blogspot.com/2011/10/church-and-publicity.html