Our Lady Queen of Peace Basilica is the largest Basilica in the world (by size) according to the Guinness book of records, even surpassing St Peter's Basilica. It is situated in Yamoussoukro in Côte D'Ivoire, two hours drive from the Ivorian capital Abidjan, and was built by the late president Félix Houphouët-Boigny between 1985 and 1989.
Upon it's completion, it was gifted to the Vatican and is even now managed remotely. It truly is a masterpiece, a very beautiful place of worship. It was made by the best and dedicated to the one who deserves nothing the best. Though the biggest in size, it is a minor Basilica.
I visited this beautiful edifice a few weeks ago, having heard so much about it, and was truly impressed with what I saw. The Basilica is beautiful, as you can see from pictures, and much thought was given to its design, architecture and actual construction. However due to its location, it is rarely used to its optimum capacity, its largest crowd ranging to about 700 people on a typical day of worship. It has only been filled to its maximum capacity of 17,000 twice since it was built; the first at her dedication and the second during the burial of the late president who built it.
In addition to being so under-utilized, it is also under-maintained. This is no wonder since the cost of maintaining such an edifice will be very high, estimated at $1.5m annually. Most catholic churches are maintained from donations from parishioners, visitors and tourists. This Basilica though does not pull crowd from any of these three categories and hence lacks sufficient funds for its maintenance. Though the church building itself was not looking too poorly maintained, the exterior and the grounds need quite a bit of maintenance and clean up. There were cracks in the floor marble and dust and grit on the floors.
I think that since the church already has this edifice even though it was unwarranted due to its cost and location, all must be done to try to preserve it. The Vatican needs work with the foundation set up by the late president to oversee the running of the church to 'drive traffic' to the church to augment the funds currently been made available for its maintenance. Though it is not the seat of the local ordinary, it can be chosen as the host venue for various deanery, diocesan and multi-diocesan programs in order to increase attendance. It could also be cited as the venue for faith programs in the West Africa sub-region.
Indeed serious consideration needs to be given to how to ensure that this edifice does not degenerate and eventually lie fallow like so many in the western world which have become so with the reduction in the number of the faithful. In this part of the world, there is still a significant number of faithful who will support the maintenance of places of worship provided a platform is provided to enable them do so.
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