Cardinal Cupich says Trump administration’s ‘gamifying’ of Iran war is ‘sickening’

March 09, 2026

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CWN Editor's Note: In a March 7 statement entitled “A Call to Conscience,” Cardinal Blase Cupich of Chicago denounced the Trump administration for “gamifying” the Iran war.

He wrote:

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 ...

Journalists now use the term “gamifying” the war to describe this dynamic ... 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.

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