NEWS & VIEWS
from a CATHOLIC perspective

      ANN ARBOR, Michigan (CWNews.com) - Tom Monaghan, founder of the Domino's Pizza restaurant chain, announced on Wednesday that he will spend $50 million to found the new Ave Maria School of Law to produce lawyers grounded in natural law and the teachings of the Catholic Church.

      Expected to open in fall 2000 in Ann Arbor, the school will be led by Bernard Dobranski, currently Dean of Catholic University of America's law school, and its first new professor is Judge Robert Bork, a one-time nominee for the US Supreme Court. Dobranski said the emphasis in training will be on Catholic moral truths in law. "The rule of law must be founded in a belief that there is an objective, moral order," Dobranski told the Detroit Free Press newspaper. "This is something no law school does effectively."

      Monaghan, who recently sold his privately-held pizza chain last year for an estimated $1 billion, has used his fortune to support Catholic causes, including universities, parochial schools, and a cathedral in Nicaragua. He has also served on the Boards of Trustees of Franciscan University of Steubenville and Catholic University of America. The new law school will be located on the same campus as the Ave Maria Institute, a two-year college in the process of becoming a four-year college.