(OSV News): Blase Cardinal Cupich of Chicago issued “a call to conscience,” deploring efforts to “gamify” the US-Israel war with Iran—particularly by the Trump administration.
“A real war with real death and real suffering being treated like it’s a video game— it’s sickening,” wrote Cardinal Cupich in a March 7 statement published on the archdiocese’s website.
The cardinal pointed to a 42-second video posted on March 5 on the White House’s X [formerly Twitter] account, which featured a mashup of action clips interspersed with unclassified video from US Central Command showing US missile strikes on Iran and secretary of War, Pete Hegseth.
The clip, captioned, “JUSTICE THE AMERICAN WAY,” included scenes from films, video games, and television—such as “Iron Man,” “Top Gun”, “Halo”, “Superman”, and “Breaking Bad”—with a voiceover at the end declaring, “Flawless victory.”
The war, launched by the US and Israel on February 28, has so far killed more than 1,200 people in Iran, including supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and several senior officials. At least 165, including a number of children, died at a school adjacent to an Iranian Revolutionary Guard base in Minab. Emerging footage indicates that the strike appears to have been initiated by the US.
With the war now engulfing multiple nations in the Middle East and sending shockwaves through the global economy, a further 400 people have reportedly been killed in Lebanon, and 11 in Israel.
Seven US soldiers have also been killed so far.
“Hundreds of people are dead, mothers and fathers, daughters and sons, including scores of children who made the fatal mistake of going to school that day,” said Cardinal Cupich in his statement.
The cardinal added, “Hundreds of thousands displaced, and many millions more are terrified across the Middle East.”
He emphasised that the fallen US soldiers “are also dishonoured” by the White House’s social media post.
The cardinal stressed that the post was symptomatic of an even greater threat.
“This horrifying portrayal demonstrates that we now live in an era when the distance between the battlefield and the living room has been drastically reduced,” he said. “The moral crisis we are facing is not just a matter of the war itself, but also how we, the observers, view violence, for war now has become a spectator sport or strategy game.”
The moral crisis we are facing is not just a matter of the war itself, but also how we, the observers, view violence, for war now has become a spectator sport or strategy game.
Cardinal Cupich
Cardinal Cupich observed that Kalshi—a prediction exchange market allowing participants to trade on the outcome of future events—faced a lawsuit from users unhappy with the company’s decision to invoke a “death carveout” and not pay out US$54 million that users had “wagered on Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei’s ouster after he was killed.”
The cardinal described the “gamifying” of war as “a profound moral failure” that “strips away the humanity of real people.”
He said, “Let’s not forget, a ‘hit’ isn’t putting points on the board; it’s a grieving family whose suffering we ignore when we prioritise entertainment, and profit, over empathy.”
Cardinal Cupich said, “Our government is treating the suffering of the Iranian people as a backdrop for our own entertainment, as if it’s just another piece of content to be swiped through while we’re waiting in line at the grocery store.”
He warned, “In the end, we lose our humanity when we are thrilled by the destructive power of our military. We become addicted to the ‘spectacle’ of explosions. And the price of this habit is almost unnoticeable, as we become desensitised to the true costs of war.”
But, said Cardinal Cupich, “the longer we remain blind to the terrible consequences of war, the more we are risking the most precious gift God gave us: our humanity.”
He stressed, “I know that the American people are better than this. We have the good sense to know that what is happening is not entertainment but war, and that Iran is a nation of people, not a video game others play to entertain us.”
