Chicago Archbishop Condemns ‘Horrifying’ Iran War Video | EUROtoday

Cardinal Blase J. Cupich has joined a rising refrain of Catholic leaders in talking out towards President Donald Trump’s international coverage strikes.

Cupich, who has served as archbishop of Chicago since 2014, blasted the Trump administration’s insensitive messaging across the Iran conflict after the White House posted a video that includes clips of “Gladiator” and “The Matrix” and different films spliced with precise Iran strike footage to social media final week.

“A real war with real death and real suffering being treated like it’s a video game — it’s sickening,” he wrote in an announcement titled “A Call to Conscience” Saturday. “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.”

“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 continued.

The Trump administration has made various eyebrow-raising makes an attempt on social media to get Americans excited in regards to the conflict ever because the battle, dubbed Operation Epic Fury, erupted Feb. 28.

As Cupich implied, the White House drew an analogy between the conflict and video video games when it shared a submit that compiled real-life clips of Iran strikes with scenes from the Grand Theft Auto franchise.

Elsewhere in his assertion, Cupich urged lawmakers to maneuver away from additional “gamifying” the conflict, deeming these efforts a “profound moral failure” that “strips away the humanity of real people.”

“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 wrote. “But, in the end, we lose our humanity when we are thrilled by the destructive power of our military.”

“I know that the American people are better than this,” he concluded. “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.”

Cupich, after all, wasn’t the one public determine to denounce the Trump administration’s social media submit. On Friday, actor-director Ben Stiller known as on the White House to take away scenes from his 2008 movie “Tropic Thunder” from the video, writing partly: “War is not a movie.”

Cupich’s remarks come a bit greater than a month after a New Jersey-based Catholic chief and outstanding ally to Pope Leo XIV issued a strongly worded condemnation of the Trump administration’s crackdown on immigrants.

In a Jan. 25 on-line prayer service, Cardinal Joseph Tobin urged Congress to “vote against renewing funding for such a lawless organization,” referring to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

“We mourn for a world, a country that allows 5-year-olds to be legally kidnapped and protesters to be slaughtered,” he mentioned.