Although few people in Britain will know the name of Tom Monaghan, there are fewer still who will not know the name of Domino’s Pizza, the global restaurant chain which he founded. And yet the story of Tom Monaghan’s life and faith is astonishing, almost beggaring belief.
He was born on March 25, 1937, the feast of the Annunciation, and his is a rags-to-riches story, the very stuff of which the American Dream is made. Raised in Michigan, in America’s Midwest, not far from Detroit, Monaghan lost his beloved father as a child and was then abandoned by his mother. Having spent his childhood in an orphanage and later in a succession of largely loveless foster homes, he was forced to abandon his hope of a college education because of his inability to meet the cost. Seeking a desperate escape from his dead-end life, he joined the Marines, lapsing for a while from the practice of the Catholic faith which had been instilled in him by the nuns who ran the orphanage.
