Word: basilica
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Seen from miles away, it looks like a giant pearl-gray dirigible hovering over the African bush. Up close, its true shape emerges: a sandy-beige concrete behemoth topped by a gargantuan dome and a copper cross that gleams in the relentless sun. Equally remarkable, the great basilica is built in post-Renaissance style and has two long arms formed by 128 massive Doric columns that reach out from the porch to envelop a 7.4-acre plaza paved with granite and marble. Has St. Peter's Basilica been magically transported from Rome to the heart of Africa? No, this...
...lagoon, has long been perched on the edge of disaster. The magnitude of the threat became clear on Nov. 4, 1966, when a storm on the Adriatic Sea inundated St. Mark's Square in nearly 4 ft. of water and pounded the facade of its revered basilica. But Venetians have come to accept periodic flooding -- acqua alta (high water), they call it -- as a way of life, while city officials and the Italian government have been slow to realize that Venice's artistic and architectural treasures are in grave danger...
...bells of L'Aquila tolled dolorously last week in mourning for a missing Pope. The remains of 13th century Pope St. Celestine V -- a nearly intact skeleton with a wax face -- had been stolen from the city's basilica of Santa Maria di Collemaggio. Celestine occupied St. Peter's chair for five months in 1294, and then abdicated -- an act Dante alluded to as the "great refusal." He was canonized...
Word had gone out that the memorial service for the 17 victims of a savage election-day attack on a schoolhouse in downtown Port-au-Prince was set for 9 a.m. But when the hour tolled, the Basilica Notre Dame was empty, and churchworkers began locking up the faded pink-and-yellow cathedral. The attendants nervously explained that the service had been canceled "because of rain." On the steps of the cathedral, a 79-year-old man squinted at the light drizzle. "People are too scared," he whispered. "It is still too soon...
...messages. But the activity could not disguise the deep psychic toll taken by the election-day violence that left at least 50 people dead and dozens wounded last week. In Port-au-Prince, the capital, hundreds of Haitians packed their meager belongings and fled to the countryside. At the Basilica Notre Dame, the usual crowd of devout worshipers was missing. Instead, a few beggars haunted the steps. It was as if Haitians had lost their faith even in prayer...