Word: houphouet
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...Houphouet-Boigny, who converted to Roman Catholicism as an orphaned teenager, views his basilica as a pilgrimage center for Africa's 73 million Catholics and a bulwark against Islam and animism in his own country, which counts about 1 million Christians in a population of 10 million. As many as 300,000 pilgrims would easily fit into the plaza...
Apart from the problematic location, the basilica's distinctly non-African design has raised questions: all the figures depicted in the stained-glass windows are white, except for a lone black pilgrim who bears a remarkable resemblance to Houphouet-Boigny. Especially troublesome is the cost of the construction: the price tag may exceed $200 million...
...unseemly expense in a country with an annual per capita income of $650. Demands a devout Ivory Coaster: "Why build a church for God while there are so many unemployed and near starving?" The regime counters that the church was paid for entirely by private funds provided by Houphouet-Boigny and his sister and was built on land owned by the President...
...Houphouet-Boigny considers the basilica a gift not only to Africa but also to the Vatican. Though he discussed the project in an audience with Pope John Paul II last April, the Pontiff will not come to dedicate the church in September. (If he ever does visit, John Paul will stay in a huge residence built especially for him, complete with swimming pool, 20 rooms and a 40-room mansion for his entourage...
Rising higher than St. Peter's in Rome and costing as much as $200 million to build, the basilica of Our Lady of Peace is Ivory Coast President Houphouet- Boigny's gift to all Africa's Christians and to the Vatican. But in his impoverished homeland, critics charge him with unseemly extravagance, and Rome seems cool to the gesture...