Word: franciscanism
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...stories became the dreams of Christopher Columbus. The quest for a passage to Cathay, the medieval name for northern China, would propel countless explorers through serendipitous discoveries in America. (In 1634, for example, the Frenchman Jean Nicolet left Quebec in search of China and discovered Green Bay, Wis.) Meanwhile, Franciscan missionary diplomats sent by the Pope to seek an alliance with the Khan against Islam brought back a black powder to a fellow Franciscan, the Oxford scientist Roger Bacon, the first European to write about gunpowder...
...crush of tourists at Jerusalem's Church of the Holy Sepulchre. Built above the site of Christ's crucifixion and tomb, the church has since 1852 been managed according to an uneasy truce imposed on six warring Christian factions by the Ottoman sultan who ruled Jerusalem at the time. Franciscan Catholics, Greek Orthodox, Armenian, Egyptian Coptic, Syrian and Ethiopian sects each jealously guard their portion of the holy site, according the sultan's rules. But there is only one entrance to the church, which the Israeli authorities fear isn't enough for safety reasons - especially when an expected...
When drivers aren't praying, they're fasting. Who knew they were an offshoot of the Franciscan monks? As I'm talking to Kyle Petty, the ponytailed shaman among NASCAR drivers, he goes into the refrigerator of his trailer for an energy bar and makes sure it has the right ratio of protein to carbohydrates. "In the trailer park where all the drivers live in their coaches, if you're out of skim milk or tuna, you know what door to knock on, because you know who's on what diet...
...things also went out. From the 14th to the 19th centuries, the tesoro was regularly pillaged--in riots, civil wars, revolutions and invasions. During the decline of the Franciscan order, the monks themselves were not above alleviating their holy poverty by doing a little de-accessioning. They were apparently following their founder's injunction by selling what they had and giving the proceeds to the poor (themselves). All in all, what remains of the basilican treasury is only a fragment of its earlier glories. So one should not, perhaps, expect too much from this show. In any case, it bears...
...career 10 years ago, after retiring as a special agent with the FBI. With a pension worth $41,000, or 70% of his previous annual salary of $59,000, the security of a $250,000 life-insurance policy and his $280,000 home as assets, Ouimet began running the Franciscan Family Apostolate Inc., a Guilford, Conn., charity that is helping 1,100 impoverished families in India rebuild their lives. His current salary: around $30,000 a year. "I enjoyed my 31 years with the FBI," says Ouimet, the father of four grown children. "But the work...