Cardinal Cupich issues “A Call to Conscience” on portrayal of war

Vatican News 

In a statement entitled  “A Call to Conscience,” addressing the human cost of the ongoing conflict involving Iran, the Archbishop of Chicago laments the "sickening" way the war is being portrayed online.

Referring to recent bombardments, Cardinal Blase Cupich writes that “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'."

It is sickening, he notes, that "a real war and real suffering" are being treated like a video game.

"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 dishonoured by that social media post. Hundreds of thousands are displaced," Cardinal Cupich points out, and many millions more are terrified across the Middle East."

Distance between battlefield and living room

In the statement, the Cardinal reflects on the role of media and technology in shaping public perception of conflict.

He writes that “the distance between the battlefield and the living room has been drastically reduced,” and says the moral crisis we are facing goes beyond the war itself, and is to be found also in "how we, the observers, view violence, for war now has become a spectator sport or strategy game."

The Archbishop notes that even journalists now use the term "gamifying" the war, a choice of words that  “strips away the humanity of real people.”

Decrying what he sees as a "profound moral failure", Cardinal Cupich writes: “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.”

Desensitisation to the costs of war

And lamenting the U.S. government's attitude that, he says, "treats the suffering of the Iranian people as a backdrop for our own entertainment", the Archbishop says this leads us to “Lose our humanity when we are thrilled by the destructive power of our military.”

“We become addicted to the ‘spectacle’ of explosions,” he adds, noting that “the price of this habit is almost unnoticeable, as we become desensitised to the true costs of war.”

“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 says.

Concluding, Cardinal Cupich states: “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.”