S. Fla. Businessman Provided Blessed Bedding For Pope's Cuba Trip

MIAMI (CBS4) - Being the spiritual leader of one billion Catholics worldwide can be tiring. So when 84-year-old Pope Benedict XVI travels to Cuba to celebrate masses, meet with the country's leaders, and bless ordinary Cubans, the church wants to make sure the pontiff will be well rested.

That's where Keith Koenig comes in.

"Archbishop Wenski's office called and said the Archbishop is putting together a trip to Cuba and asked if my wife and I would like to go and I thought about it for a second and said, 'yea I'd like to go'," Koenig said.

Koenig is president of City Furniture, one of South Florida's largest furniture stores, which led to the follow up question from the archdiocese.

"About 5 minutes later they called back and said 'oh by the way we need to mattresses for the Pope, one for Santiago and one for Havana where he is going to stay'," said Koenig.

Koenig said yes and he's not about to take the request lying down. Being a good salesman he shared with CBS4 anchor Eliott Rodriguez the details of the two king sized mattresses and sheets he sent to Cuba. He sent the cream of the crop called the Kevin Charles mattress. It sells for about 11 hundred dollars.

"It's a memory foam mattress very plush top its really as good as you're going to get its named after my brother who passed away ten years ago and Kevin was a very devout Catholic," he said.

Koenig is in Cuba for the papal visit. He joins thousands of faithful Catholics who hope the trip will lead to better relations between the Cuban government and the Catholic Church.

"Cuba needs freedom and the pope is a good steward of freedom," said Koenig.