I have mixed feelings, Marsh...especially if the assigned Priests participate in firearms training (now, admittedly, the article does not say that they do, it says simply that they jump).
I was having a conversation recently with one of my Priests who was saying he hoped a parishioner would teach his young sun to shoot and hunt, as he himself cannot own a gun or any weaponry. In his words, “The Priest is supposed to be an instrument of the Grace of God, not the Wrath of God - this is why the Byzantines were APPALLED when the Crusaders’ Priests showed up bearing swords.”
his young SON, not sun.
You wrote:
“this is why the Byzantines were APPALLED when the Crusaders’ Priests showed up bearing swords.”
The Byzantines spent much of their existence APPALLED at something or other. Kind of reminds me of how Muslims are constantly HUMILIATED. Western clergymen were repeatedly forbidden to carry weapons. They did so anyway. If they did, and Byzantine clergy didn’t, that might only mean the western glerics were more honest about their intentions. Eastern clergy then (and sometimes now) brawl at the drop of a hat. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/7718587.stm