By: David Rice To: Judith Bandsma Re: Try God Dry! +gt;DR+gt; The owner of Dominos Pizza s
By: David Rice
To: Judith Bandsma
Re: Try God Dry!
>DR> The owner of Dominos Pizza sends a large percentage of his
>DR> profit to "Operation 'Rescue.'" He's a hyperfundy.
JB> I just recently learned about that, but we quit ordering
JB> Dominos quite some time ago. Didn't do it for 'political'
JB> reasons, but I am quite glad to find that I am depriving
JB> a detested organization of my money.
Midshipman Q has receintly told me that the ownership of
Dominoes has changed hands. I don't know how to varify this.
A related article, long out of date:
CHURCH OPENS DOOR FOR DOMINO'S CULT CONNECTION
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Domino's founders closely tied to right-wing causes.
For Thomas Monaghan, the path to heaven is paved with mozzarella
cheese. Monaghan is founder and chief executive officer of Domino's,
the biggest home delivery pizza chain in the world. He's also a
regular guest of the Vatican, founder of a controversial Catholic
businessmen's group closely linked to an authoritarian cult,
financial backer of the anti-abortion group Operation Rescue, and a
supporter of anti-left counterinsurgencies in the Third World.
The man who has made millions off pizza was in Toronto recently,
trying to expand his spiritual empire into the souls of Canadian
businessmen.
It's not clear just how much control Monaghan has over Domino's
franchises in Canada. The manager of a local Domino's francise says
he "isn't allowed to talk about it." He refers inquires to the
Toronto Director of Operations, who does not return calls.
Domino's International has operations in 20 countries. Domino's
Pizza of Canada Limited, a subsidiary of Domino's International, has
become King of Canadian pizzas in a mere 7 years. From a single
store in Winnepeg, the company now boasts 140 outlets across Canada,
with 75 in Ontario and 7 in Toronto.
It is known that Canadian outlets buy all their ingredients from
Domino-owned commissaries. At one of the commissaries, located in
Kitchener, all questions are referred to Domino's headquarters in
Michigan.
The man behind this secretive fast-food empire came to Toronto to
pave the way for a branch of his equally shadowy club of Roman
Catholic corporate kingpins.
The trip, it appears, was a success. The Catholic archdiocese of
Toronto has given a go-ahead for the establishment of a local
chapter of Legatus.
To Catholic leaders, Legatus is an elite Catholic club of
millionaries trying to keep god and Christ alive in the cut-throat
world of high finance. To others, the organization is the financial
backbone of a destructive cult called The Word of God, which
maintains absolute control of it's followers through a practice
called shepherding.
Legatus first approached the archdiocese chaplain, monsignor Robert
Charlebois, met with then archbishop Emmett Carter and arranged to
have Monaghan address the diocesan hierarchy.
"(Monaghan) flew in in his own plane with three or four others who
were members of Legatus," says Pearse Lacey, bishop for the western
district of the archdiocese and one of three personal advisors to
Carter and archbishop Aloysius Ambrozic. "He spoke primarily to the
subject of Legatus and explained what it was, and expressed the hope
that there was a place for another chapter in this city."
According to Lacey, Monaghan asked the archbishop for permission to
setup shop in Toronto. "it would be very prudent because people
would immediately question his credability" if he did not have the
archbishop's stamp of approval, Lacey says.
To be eligible to join Legatus, a member has to be the head of a
corporation doing at least $4 million in sales.
"What quickley won my favour was the fact that they were basically a
spiritual organization who recognized that people in high positions
often times are more impoverished by the role of leadership they are
placed in," Lacey says. "So I thought, 'Gee, this is a terrific
idea.' They are a group of people in society and because of their
eliteness are very impoverished."
Monaghan is indeed elite. As the founder of Domino's Pizza chain,
his personal wealth is estimated to be more than $400 million. He is
also owner of the Detriot Tigers baseball team.
In an interview in his spacious office in Ann Arbor, Monaghan says
he decided in 1987, after a session with the pope, that he would
form an exclusive organization of Catholic CEOs. "Within an hour of
meeting him, I came up with this idea.... I now believe that
establishing Legatus is the reason the lord put me on this earth,"
Monaghan says.
Each fall, the group holds weeklong meetings in Rome that include an
audience with the pope. In 1989. Legatus held a three-day event in
Washington DC, that included meetings with George Bush and serveral
cabinet members in the White House.
Legatus - whose headquarters are next door to Monaghan's office -
has established chapters in a number os U.S. cities and is
organizing chapters abroad. Monaghan is chair of the group, while a
Domino's vice-president is vice-chair.
Despite Legatus's claim of being apolitical, new right leaders such
as Phyllis Schlafy and Paul Weyrich have participated in it's
programs. Phyllis Schlafy a Legatus member, is well known for her
campaign against the U.S. Equal Rights Amendments, which would have
guaranteed equal protection for women, as well as her hard-line
support for Star Wars. Weyrich is one of the key leaders of the
radical right in Washington, DC, and a founder of Jerry Falwell's
now defunct Moral Majority.
In Los Angeles, a key Legatus organizer also heads a local group
that distributes the literature of the John Birch Society, a far
right political group.
Potential members are told that Legatus' purpose is to improve the
spiritual lives and ethical decision-making of it's members. "If
there were a political dimension in (Legatus), it would cause us
(bishops and clergy) to question it credability," Lacey says.
Even more contraversial than Legatus is Word of God (WOG), whose
leaders claim to have recieved divinely inspired prophecies wherein
god is to have said, "I am going to make you my people in a way
which I have never before made any people my people."
But to be so chosen, there must be total obedience to "the
shepherd," the spiritual leader of individual WOG groups. Members
who challenge the authority of shepherds can be judged as possessed
by demons and are subject to traumatic exorcism rites by WOG
leaders. Exorcism, rarely practised in mainstream churches, is seen
by WOG as a means of countering demons of "rebelliousness,
independence, feminism, isolation, etc..," according to a WOG
internal document.
E-Mail Fredric L. Rice / The Skeptic Tank