Daniel Breimert, well-armed chaplain
Swedish soldiers are deployed in Afghanistan and one Swedish chaplain got in a bit of trouble recently when he wrote a newspaper column describing how he manned the machine gun on an armored personnel carrier. Daniel Breimert was quickly reported to church authorities who have no issued a ruling: pastors an’t operate machine guns. “A Swedish field pastor carries a weapon, but only to be used in self-defence and to protect others,” Marie-Louise Olsson Rautalinko, a lawyer with the cathedral chapter in Härnösand in northern Sweden, said in a statement. (Surely a machine gun can be used to protect others?)
A Swedish bishop said: “If a pastor is sitting behind a machine gun, then he’s misunderstood his mission. He should be there for spiritual guidance and church-related matters; there are soldiers who can man the machine gun.”
Breimert has now expressed regret for manning the machine gun.
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