Beatitudes Church

Beatitudes Church "Gift" Shop

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 saleswoman (her hair is facing the camera above) how she justifies hawking whiskey and vodka (bottom right corner of the photo) at a church, especially one that is supposed to commemorate Jesus' Sermon on the Mount. She replied, "We don't sell flask so people cannot drink inside the church."

"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)