Loading...
Loading...
Click here if you don’t see subscription options
December 21, 2009

Catholic groups were alternately hopeful and dejected by President Obama’s plan to add 30,000 troops to the war effort in Afghanistan. “I think he’s making a tragic and horrible mistake,” said David Robinson, head of Pax Christi USA. “The irony of him announcing this fateful escalation the week before [receiving] the Nobel Peace Prize, this is Greek tragedy.” Mary Ellen Gallagher, a Maryknoll sister who is on the staff of the Maryknoll Office for Global Concerns in Maryknoll, N.Y., said she hopes and prays that this strategy works. “But after eight years of this war, with the toll it takes on our own soldiers, the toll it takes on the people in Afghanistan, the lack of training in these eight years for the Afghani soldiers: Where have they been in all these eight years? Why have they not been trained to protect their own people? These are the questions that we have,” she said.

Comments are automatically closed two weeks after an article's initial publication. See our comments policy for more.

The latest from america

Sam Sawyer, S.J., editor-in-chief of America Media, returns to “Preach” to discuss his series of homilies for Advent, which aim for greater cohesiveness compared to typical stand-alone Sunday homilies.
PreachNovember 25, 2024
Experienced foster parents often say two things: Foster care reveals things that are true of every parenting relationship. And fostering is intensely, inherently pro-life work that should be much more vigorously supported and promoted by the Catholic Church.
Simcha FisherNovember 25, 2024
“What I’d like to see is the breaking down of this notion that there are the professional Christians—who are the priests, the bishops, the religious and many lay people—and the recognition that we’re all part of this together.”
Gerard O’ConnellNovember 25, 2024
Pope Francis has announced he will travel to the French island of Corsica on Dec. 15, visiting France just a week after the scheduled reopening of Notre Dame that he will not be attending.