Sweden: Military Chaplains Can't Operate Machine Guns

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.