Pope Francis, the head of the Vatican and Catholic Church, was caught in a video saying that Scotch whiskey is the real holy water as he joked in front of the Scottish student priest that was visiting him.

The student presented him with a bottle of scotch when the pope made the joke.

However, the Vatican decided to censor the joke, which was supposed to be involved in a documentary that is all about seminarians at the Scot College in Rome.

The video shows 82-year-old Pope Francis accepting a bottle of Oban 14 malt from the students during an event at the Apostolic Palace last year.

The Vatican media said the clip in question has been cut from the one-hour BBC documentary “Priest School,” which will air later this month.

Talking about the documentary, Tony Kearney, the director of the film, said:

“We filmed the students meeting with the pope in the Apostolic Palace. One of them was tasked with giving the pope a bottle of malt, because they know he likes whisky. He was really down to earth with them all and when they handed him the bottle, instead of just handing it to his assistant as he normally would with a gift, he held it up and said, ‘Questa e la vera acqua santa,’ which means ‘This is the real holy water.’ He guffawed with laughter and it was a real ice-breaker with the students and put everyone at ease. But we’d agreed that the Vatican’s media office would be allowed to approve all of our footage before we broadcast it. So we sent them the files and when they sent it back, that bit of him saying that was cut out. We were really annoyed at first, but they insisted they didn’t want the pope to be seen to be endorsing whisky. I think it’s quite funny how guarded his image is.

This is not the first time Pope Francis had been presented with a bottle of whiskey.

In 2019, that Scottish priest Jim Wallis and other Scottish bishops met Pope Francis and presented a bottle of whiskey.

Not only that, but Queen Elizabeth II also gave Pope Francis a bottle of Scotch when they met for the first time in the year 2014.