Attorney Andreas Stenkar Karlgren believes that the chapter's decision to declare his principal as unauthorized to perform the church's ordination service is a serious mistake and a violent overreaction.
He does not believe the decision will stand in the Board of Appeal, but if it does, it will create a church split in the diocese.
"Theological breadth"Andreas Stenkar Karlgren firmly argues that the church allows two different views on same-sex marriage - for and against.
- If all priests are to report at all times on the theological breadth of the whole church with regard to the view of same-sex couples, it falls to their own unreasonableness. In fact, priests have the right to represent one of the church's two positions. They should not have to present two different positions as soon as they get a question about it, he says and continues:
- On the contrary, my principal has explicit support in his positions on, among other things, homosexuals in the church's own teaching documents. She is not a rabid person threatened with hell and the devil.
"An emergency crisis"He also claims that if the decision were to stand, it would mean completely changed circumstances in the Swedish church.
- There are 100's of priests who will not be able to remain and exercise their office. In this way, the chapter of the cathedral has put the church in an acute crisis where either the decision has to be abolished or a very large minority expelled. So a lot is at stake, says Andreas Stenkar Karlgren.