Cardinal Cupich Criticizes President Trump's Administration White House Video on the War in Iran "like it’s a video game" in Full Text Statement
"More than a thousand" Iranian men, women, and children "lie dead after days of US and Israeli missile strikes." Yet, "the official White House X account posted a video Thursday evening of scenes from popular action movies spliced with actual strike footage from their war on Iran." A video clip where "a real war with real death and real suffering" is treated "like it’s a video game." This is the way that US Cardinal Blaise J. Cupich, Archbishop of Chicago, described terms the video released in recent days by the White House, in which images of US and Israeli bombings on Iranian cities are shown against the backdrop of the song "Macarena". The American Cardinal called this "disgusting" in a statement titled "A Call to Conscience," released while Cupich was presiding over the International Meeting for Peace and Reconciliation in Chicago, organized by Loyola University in collaboration with the Pontifical Commission for Latin America.
Statement of Cardinal Blase J. Cupich, archbishop of Chicago, “A Call to Conscience”
March 7, 2026
As more than 1,000 Iranian men, women and children lay dead after days of bombardment from U.S. and Israeli missiles, the official White House X account on Thursday evening posted a video of scenes from popular action movies spliced with actual strike footage from their war on Iran. The clip was captioned: “JUSTICE THE AMERICAN WAY.”
A real war with real death and real suffering being treated like it’s a video game — it’s sickening. 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. Six U.S. soldiers have been killed. They are also dishonored by that social media post. Hundreds of thousands displaced, and many millions more are terrified across the Middle East.
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. 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. Indeed, the prediction market Kalshi recently paid a $2.2 million settlement related to users who were unhappy with how the company paid out the $55 million wagered on Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei's ouster after his was killed.
Journalists now use the term “gamifying” the war to describe this dynamic. What a profound moral failure, for gamifying strips away the humanity of real people. Let’s not forget, a “hit” isn’t putting points on the board; it’s a grieving family whose suffering we ignore when we prioritize entertainment, and profit, over empathy.
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. But, 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 desensitized to the true costs of war. But 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.
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.
Source: https://www.archchicago.org/statement/-/article/2026/03/08/statement-of-blase-j-cupich-archbishop-of-chicago-a-call-to-conscienceAs more than 1,000 Iranian men, women and children lay dead after days of bombardment from U.S. and Israeli missiles, the official White House X account on Thursday evening posted a video of scenes from popular action movies spliced with actual strike footage from their war on Iran. The clip was captioned: “JUSTICE THE AMERICAN WAY.”
A real war with real death and real suffering being treated like it’s a video game — it’s sickening. 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. Six U.S. soldiers have been killed. They are also dishonored by that social media post. Hundreds of thousands displaced, and many millions more are terrified across the Middle East.
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. 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. Indeed, the prediction market Kalshi recently paid a $2.2 million settlement related to users who were unhappy with how the company paid out the $55 million wagered on Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei's ouster after his was killed.
Journalists now use the term “gamifying” the war to describe this dynamic. What a profound moral failure, for gamifying strips away the humanity of real people. Let’s not forget, a “hit” isn’t putting points on the board; it’s a grieving family whose suffering we ignore when we prioritize entertainment, and profit, over empathy.
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. But, 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 desensitized to the true costs of war. But 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.
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.
WH Video on X: https://x.com/WhiteHouse/status/2029741548791853331
Image Vatican Media of Pope Leo XIV's Meeting with Cardinal Cupich
Comments