Cardinal denounces Trump administration’s ‘gamifying’ of Iran conflict

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’