“The moral crisis we are facing is not just a matter of the war itself,” Cupich said, “but also how we, the observers, view violence, for war now has become a spectator sport or strategy game.”
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A senior U.S. cardinal has issued a stinging condemnation of the Trump administration’s “gamifying” behavior, as the U.S.-led bombardment of Iran enters its second full week.
Blase Cupich, the cardinal archbishop of Pope Leo XIV’s native Chicago, released his statement on Saturday, saying the U.S. government is “is treating the suffering of the Iranian people as a backdrop for our own entertainment,” and decrying the Trump administration’s social media campaign in support of the military action as “a profound moral failure.”
Cupich specifically cited a Thursday evening post to the official White House X account, which spliced together scenes from popular action movies with actual footage from the U.S.-led strikes on Iranian targets, captioning the montage: “JUSTICE THE AMERICAN WAY.”
“It’s sickening,” Cupich said.
“Hundreds of people are dead,” Cupich said, “mothers and fathers, daughters and sons, including scores of children who made the fatal mistake of going to school that day,” that last a reference to a February 28 attack that killed as many as 160 civilians, most of them students at a girls’ school.
The U.S. military has said a preliminary investigation suggests U.S. assets were “likely responsible” for the incident.
Amid the backlash over the girls’ school bombing, White House Deputy Chief of Staff for Policy Stephen Miller told Fox News, “What you’re seeing right now is a military under President Trump’s leadership that’s not fighting politically correct, that isn’t fighting with its hands tied behind its back.”
So far, U.S. President Donald Trump has not made his case for war to the U.S. Congress, something his administration maintains is unnecessary at this stage, though many lawmakers on both sides of the aisle beg to differ.
The legalities of the war aside, Trump has offered several different rationales for the campaign to a host of news outlets, not all of them perfectly compatible with one another.
In an interview with Vatican News last week, Cupich strongly questioned one of the reasons proffered for the campaign, saying the idea that the attack on Iran had a legitimate purpose was “very questionable” since there is no immediate threat from the Middle East nation.
RELATED: US Cardinal Cupich questions legitimacy of war against Iran
“We have been told that the nuclear capabilities of Iran…have been neutralized by a bombing that took place months ago,” Cupich told Vatican News.
Pope Leo XIV on Sunday renewed his appeals for peace, saying the news that continues to come from Iran and the whole Mideast region is cause for “profound consternation.”
RELATED: Pope issues fresh appeal for peace as Middle East conflict escalates
“Six U.S. soldiers have been killed,” Cupich noted in his latest statement. “They are also dishonored by that social media post,” he said, further noting the “hundreds of thousands displaced, and many millions more are terrified across the Middle East.”
Cupich decried the administration’s behavior as a “horrifying portrayal” demonstrating how “we now live in an era when the distance between the battlefield and the living room has been drastically reduced.”
“The moral crisis we are facing is not just a matter of the war itself,” Cupich said, “but also how we, the observers, view violence, for war now has become a spectator sport or strategy game.”
Cupich noted how online bookmakers have given odds and taken bets on the conflict.
He specifically cited the case of the Kalshi prediction market, which is facing a class-action suit over its handling of payouts related to betting on when the Ayatollah Ali Khamenei – Iran’s leader until he was killed on the first day of bombing – would “leave office.”
“Journalists now use the term ‘gamifying’ the war to describe this dynamic,” Cupich said. “What a profound moral failure,” he said, “for gamifying strips away the humanity of real people.”
“[I]n the end,” Cupich said, “we lose our humanity when we are thrilled by the destructive power of our military.”
Noting the addictive power of the “spectacle” of war, Cupich said “the price of this habit is almost unnoticeable, as we become desensitized” to war’s true cost. “
“[T]he longer we remain blind to the terrible consequences of war,” Cupich said, “the more we are risking the most precious gift God gave us: our humanity.”
“I know that the American people are better than this,” Cupich said.”
“We have the good sense to know that what is happening is not entertainment but war,” he said, “and that Iran is a nation of people, not a video game others play to entertain us.”
