Franciscan Monastery of the Holy Land in America

This guide to the Franciscan Monastery of the Holy Land in America in Washington, D.C. opens in 1897, when six Franciscan friars moved into a rotted, rat-infested farmhouse with a plan: build a working replica of the Holy Land so American Catholics who could never reach Jerusalem could pray there anyway. It follows Father Godfrey Schilling's door-to-door fundraising scheme and architect Aristide Leonori's trip to Jerusalem to measure the real holy sites before his masons began carving. Best heard walking the cloister slowly, tracing each replica shrine in turn.