I remembered receiving an appeal by Tom Monaghan for funds for Ave Maria University. I came across the letter tonight while cleaning. It is dated November 2, 2009. I thought he had admitted that Ave Maria was in dire need of funding, but I was wrong on this score. Here is the letter, slightly edited for the sake of brevity:

Dear Fellow Catholic,

My name is Tom Monaghan, and I am the founder of Domino's Pizza. Eleven years ago I sold Domino's in order to devote my time and assets to helping the Church.

Over these last eleven years, I have spent most of my time and money on advancing Catholic higher education through Ave Maria University, and I need your help to do it well.

During the last quarter-century, I have given to a lot of Catholic causes, and been asked to give to more than I can remember. Frequently, I have been criticized for both causes I have and haven't supported. I think the first such public example came in 1984 when I helped build the new Cathedral in Nicaragua. Some people said "Why put up a building, when there are poor people who need food?" So I then supported a mission in Central America that taught the youth how to farm to raise enough food for their families, and other people said "Why give them just food? You need to educate them so they can earn their keep." So I started a system of Catholic grade schools.

However, after building a number of schools, I realized that as worthwhile and important as this was, due to the expense of starting all these individual schools, I was going to run out of money faster than I had first thought. During this time, I realized that through Catholic higher education, we could train young men and women -- tomorrow's leaders, most importantly -- in the precepts of the Catholic Church, but also to be dynamic and successful contributors in our society and the Church. When this happens, people thrive, the society thrives, and the Church thrives.

Around the country, I've run into people who have said "Why should I give money to Ave Maria University, when you are giving so much?" I say, well when you're in Church, and someone puts a big check in the collection basket in front of you, do you put your money back in your pocket? Of course not. What they give has nothing to do with how your contribution can help the Church! That is the bottom line, and an important line.

[Some details about his spiritual life and some lessons about Christian spirituality, culminating in a paragraph on the importance of supporting the Church with our material reasources.]

In the late 80's and early 90's, I was approached by many Catholic causes asking me to support their efforts -- some I did and some I didn't. I wanted to be prudent with the resources at my disposal and I wanted them to have the greatest impact for the good of the Church. I learned that not everything that called itself "Catholic" was really Catholic. So I had to be discerning, as you do, in what I supported.

As I got more and more involved in Catholic causes, I developed what I thought was a fairly specific focus of what I thought was the most important work for me to do, because I knew I couldn't support everything that was good. Yet, I soon became convinced that I needed to get even more focused, and through this process I became convinced that investing in Catholic higher education would be the most efficient and effective way to train the next generation of Catholic leaders, both lay and clerical, who will carry on the vital work of the Church after you and I are gone.

So after various attempts and a lot of research and prayer, and I believe through the guidance of Mary, AMU is now in Ave Maria, Florida. In 2007 we moved into the permanent campus, and this year we have 640 students! I have been asking people coast-to-coast to donate so we can complete the Oratory, the classrooms, the dormitories -- we've come so far, but we're not done yet.

[My comment: His take on Ave Maria College? And other education debacles.]

Which brings us back to the surprise I sometimes get. People either say "You're 72, why don't you just retire and relax?" Or, they say "You have enough money, why don't you do it all yourself, why ask me for help?" Let me explain. First, I don't think God wants me to retire, and I feel driven to spend the balance of my time and effort not only in giving my resources to Ave Maria University, but also helping to raise funds from others like you, so that together we can make it possible for our graduates to go out into the world as Catholics who are well formed in the faith and academically equipped to be great in whatever they do -- as great Priests and religious, great pro-life doctors and lawyers, great teachers and great professionals of every kind. And great, great parents.

So, with the above said, I feel it is my responsibility to ask you, to implore you to join our efforts by praying, fasting, and making a gift today in support of Ave Maria University. It is easy for all of us to stand by and convince ourselves that someone else is going to do it, but I think we have to ask ourselves if this is something we are called to support in these different ways. We are attempting to build up the Church at Ave Maria by investing in the generations to come.

There is a saying, as the U.S. goes, so goes the world. As you know, the U.S. in this time and place is the superpower with the most possibility of spreading goodness to the most number of people around the globe. But it all begins here at home.

Perhaps some of your children have left the Faith. That is a tragedy. As Bishop Sheen said, very few reject the Church -- they reject what they think is the Church. And I would guess that their misimpressions were often through faulty religious education at some level. We need to change this. We must. By supporting Ave Maria University, we will have the troops needed to repopulate the high schools, grade schools, chancery offices, the Catholic hospitals, orphanages and other organizations with dedicated Catholics who are committed to the Church and committed to making a difference.

So as you see, Ave Maria University is more than just a school, and if you don't help, you'll never know how much good you could have been a part of. So really, in addition to whatever things you pray for or support, I know you won't regret it if you help us today with a gift of as much as you can to help form tomorrow's leaders in the great Catholic intellectual tradition of our Church.

[Here he makes an offer of a special gift for any donation sent by December 12, the Feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe.]

Yes, we have made great progress in building Ave Maria University, but we need to make more progress now. Your gift today will help in several ways -- it will allow us to keep up the pace, it will show the broad base of support for Ave Maria which is so important to any national institution, and it will encourage others to support us too because they will see that they can be a part of a great awakening in our culture -- the new evangelization in our country that will so dramatically shape the future of the Church.

Please, I ask you to pray, fast and contribute today. You won't regret it. In fact, I have great hope that you and I will have an eternity to rejoice in the action we take today.

Evidence of... many things that are wrong with how American Catholics understand education, evangelization, and the political economy. And an egregious example of why modern mass marketing (including the use of biography), especially when applied to the things of God, cannot but sound insincere.