The apologies reflect General Stanley McChrystal’s new strategy that prioritizes winning over the civilian population.

“The American people are tired of partisan bickering and want lawmakers to find common ground," said Sister Carol Keehan of the Catholic Health Association.

Bishop Peter Kihara Kariuki of drought-afflicted Marsabit, Kenya, said his diocese has been struggling with the “deadly effects of global warming for years now.”

A Vatican statement said that church leaders recognized the sense of “pain and anger, betrayal, scandal and shame” that the crisis provoked.

Catholic Relief Services’ anti-hunger programs during 2008 helped an estimated 49.3 million people.

Homelessness appears to be making a comeback, but not in the urban and rural communities where it persisted in past decades.