The ties that bind brothers can sometimes be surprising.
Did you know that Polish-born Pope John Paul II was a fan of Czech beer?
In a golden act of solidarity, the Czech Republic’s most prized
brewer shared a blessed brew of Pilsner Urquell beer with the Vatican to
commemorate the beatification of the pontiff who died in 2005.
Hundreds of thousands of people from
all corners of the globe flocked to Vatican City to be part of the
ceremony on May 1 that marked John Paul II’s beatification, the
third of four steps towards canonization, or being declared a saint.
“For these solemn moments…Czech brewery Plzensky Prazdroj, together
with the citizens of Plzen sent a special Easter batch of their beer to
the Vatican,” the brewery said.
While still in the brewery, this batch of the eponymous golden lager
that gave the world the style now simply called pilsner, or pils, was
blessed on March 11 by Frantisek Radkovsky, the bishop of Plzen.
“When John Paul II saw me the other day, he promptly remarked that I
was the bishop from Plzen, where we have such good beer,” the bishop
said, recalling a past meeting with the Holy See, according to the
statement.
Plzensky Prazdroj delivered
2011 bottles of the pilsner beer to Cardinal Giovanni Lajolo, President
of the Governorate of Vatican City State, early last week.