"To get as many people into heaven as possible." That is Tom Monaghan's (arguably immodest) goal. I sat down last week with Mr. Monaghan, founder of Domino's Pizza, to find out how he planned to accomplish it. Since selling his delivery empire in 1998 for an estimated $1 billion, he has given over his life to philanthropy. A trim man with a soft voice, he explains his "philosophy of giving."

"So how do you get people into heaven?" Mr. Monaghan asks, rhetorically. "Help the Catholic Church. And what's the best way of doing that? Higher education." This kind of talk makes a lot of people--even a lot of Catholics--uncomfortable. Whether it's the notion that one person can steer another's ultimate fate, or that temporal education should be used explicitly for such a purpose, Mr. Monaghan's philosophy--and his giving--have brought him a lot of attention.

The pizza magnate grew up in an orphanage in Jackson, Mich., and he credits the nuns of the St. Joseph Home for Boys with inspiring his devotion to Catholicism.He even went to seminary briefly before joining the Marine Corps. In 1959, he returned to Michigan, attending the University of Michigan. He never graduated, but during his time there he and his brother bought a small pizza store called DomiNick's in Ypsilanti. (He eventually gave his brother a VW Beetle in return for his share of the company.)

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