What's Susan Sarandon's Beef With Benedict?

Much of the discussion I've seen of the nasty crack Susan Sarandon made about Pope Benedict XVI has been almost beside the point.

In case you missed it, Newsday reported that the famously liberal Sarandon was at a speaking event at a Hampton film festival. She said that she gave a copy of the book Dead Man Walking to the Pope. Asked which pope, Sarandon said; "The last one. Not this Nazi one we have now."

Was that offensive? Duh. Was it even remotely true? The public record is pretty clear that the young Joseph Ratzinger was signed up into the Hitler Youth. But he didn't volunteer and his parents were anti-Nazi.

So maybe Sarandon was drawing some kind of contrast between the current pope and John Paul II? That makes even less sense.

For the kinds of social issues near and dear to Sarandon, one would need a magnifying glass to spot a disagreement between JPII and B16.

Take reproductive freedom questions of all kinds -- abortion, various fertility assist treatments, birth control of any sort. The prior pope was every bit as hardline as the current guy. (But Benedict XVI was willing to crack the door the smallest amount on the use of condoms -- if and only if the result is to reduce the spread of infection. And limiting the spread of HIV/AIDS is an issue Sarandon has worked on.)

On married priests? The two popes are peas in a pod.

One is as insistent as the other about the primary theological importance of the Catholic Church. And about the lack of theological mojo in other faiths, Islam in particular. Both have elements in the record that raise questions about how they handled priests who sexually abused children.

On the other hand, both popes were critical of the US invasion of Iraq, raised moral questions about pure capitalism, and argued that people and governments have specific obligations to the poor. Next week, in fact, the Vatican under the current pope is likely to call for an international financial regulatory agency to clamp down on the kinds of chicanery that helped pull the world's economy into the tank. I'd bet Sarandon would support that idea.

And consider the particular issue that Sarandon was pushing with that book. Dead Man Walking was written by a nun, Sister Helen Prejean. It was turned into a play and a movie, Sarandon won an Oscar for her portrayal of Prejean.

The theme of the book and film: opposition to the death penalty. And it is true that John Paul II wrote with unusual power and eloquence in opposing the death penalty in any but the most unusual circumstances:

"It is clear that, for these purposes to be achieved, the nature and extent of the punishment must be carefully evaluated and decided upon, and ought not go to the extreme of executing the offender except in cases of absolute necessity: in other words, when it would not be possible otherwise to defend society. Today however, as a result of steady improvements in the organization of the penal system, such cases are very rare, if not practically non-existent."

But Benedict XVI's position on this issue is identical. In 2009, he wrote this to welcome the new ambassador from Mexico:

"In this context, I joyfully welcome the initiative by which Mexico abolished the death penalty in 2005, and the recent measures adopted by some Mexican states to protect human life from its beginnings."

So what's Sarandon's beef?

Oh, there are differences between the two. John Paul II was a master of public relations. His theological steel was swaddled in his ability to project personal warmth. People felt that he cared, even if they disagreed with his positions.

The former Joseph Ratzinger doesn't do warm and fuzzy. But that hardly makes him a Nazi.

And people who know about such things say that John Paul II was more of a Thomist while Benedict XVI is more Augustinian. But I'd be stunned if Sarandon was unhappy about that.

Bottom line: This is another example of why most actors deliver their best performances with words written by others.