The Rev James Francis was travelling in an armoured vehicle north of the Bowri desert in Afghanistan, accompanying the Brigade Reconnaissance Force during the stopping and searching of vehicles for insurgents, when a Royal Marine interrupted his chat with a gunner to ask if it was right to kill.
“That was a direct question,” says the padre for 30 Commando, “but it’s quite normal for these things to occur to people out here and it’s vital that when difficult decisions are being made we have direct answers, that as Christians we don’t retreat into some kind of holy huddle.”
Francis is the archetypal Church of England priest ”“ cheerful, polite, with James Herriot DVDs and a lavish tea collection ”“ but his congregation is extraordinary: British forces who on Friday will have been engaged in operations in Afghanistan for 10 years in the wake of the 9/11 attacks.
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UK chaplains in Afghanistan: ordinary priests with an extraordinary flock
The Rev James Francis was travelling in an armoured vehicle north of the Bowri desert in Afghanistan, accompanying the Brigade Reconnaissance Force during the stopping and searching of vehicles for insurgents, when a Royal Marine interrupted his chat with a gunner to ask if it was right to kill.
“That was a direct question,” says the padre for 30 Commando, “but it’s quite normal for these things to occur to people out here and it’s vital that when difficult decisions are being made we have direct answers, that as Christians we don’t retreat into some kind of holy huddle.”
Francis is the archetypal Church of England priest ”“ cheerful, polite, with James Herriot DVDs and a lavish tea collection ”“ but his congregation is extraordinary: British forces who on Friday will have been engaged in operations in Afghanistan for 10 years in the wake of the 9/11 attacks.
Read it all.