Travel Tip
If you wish to stock up on liquor during your trip, the gift shop at the
Mount of Beatitudes church (left on
previous photo), run by Franciscans (another Roman
Catholic order), has a wide selection. In fact, booze accounts for well over half of the
Beatitudes Church gift shop's
inventory. I asked the clerk how she
justifies hawking whiskey and vodka (bottom right corner of the photo) at a churc
h,
especially one that supposedly commemorates Jesus'
Sermon on the Mount. She replied, "We
don't sell flask so people
cannot drink inside the churc
h."
"Then Jesus went into the temple of God and drove
out all those who bought and sold in the temple, and overturned the tables
of the money changers and the seats of those who sold doves. And He said to
them, “It is written, ‘My house shall be called a house of prayer,’ but you
have made it a ‘den of thieves.’' (Matthew 21:12-13)