Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception: a red-earth basilica whose twin towers never got the spires they were built for

In Ouagadougou, the capital of Burkina Faso, the Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception was built between 1934 and 1936, dedicated on 19 January 1936 according to most sources. It was built under the direction of Monsignor Joanny Thevenoud, Apostolic Vicar of Ouagadougou and a member of the White Fathers. No professional architect is documented, and Thevenoud himself remains the driving figure behind the project. The building is in Romanesque Revival style, with a three-nave basilical plan, a triple entrance portal, and two unequal towers that never received the spires originally planned for them. It is constructed entirely of sun-dried red mud brick (banco), following Sahelian building tradition. The claim that it is the largest mud-brick cathedral in West Africa is not confirmed by authoritative sources and should be treated with caution. The Apostolic Vicariate of Ouagadougou was erected on 2 July 1921 and raised to a metropolitan archdiocese on 14 September 1955, the date on which the building formally became a cathedral. Among its archbishops are two cardinals: Paul Zoungrana, archbishop from 1960 to 1995 and created cardinal in 1965, and Philippe Ouedraogo, archbishop from 2009 to 2023 and created cardinal in 2014. The current archbishop is Monsignor Prosper Kontiebo, in office since 16 October 2023. Since 2019, Burkina Faso has suffered severe jihadist violence, with documented attacks against churches and Christian communities, including those on the Protestant parish of Pansi in February 2019, the Protestant church of Silgadji in April 2019, and the Catholic church of Dablo in May 2019. All of these, however, were concentrated in the Sahel, North, East, and Centre-North regions, not in the capital; no attack or specific documented threat against this cathedral, which stands in Ouagadougou, is recorded. Even the three main jihadist attacks that took place in the capital between 2016 and 2018 struck restaurants, a hotel, and an embassy, not religious buildings. Pope John Paul II visited Ouagadougou on 29 January 1990, addressing the faithful in front of the cathedral and, the same day, priests, religious, seminarians, and catechists inside the building, in a trip also marked by an appeal for international aid against an ongoing severe drought. No documented visit by any other pontiff to this cathedral is recorded.