Cheap Shots

I am grateful to the New York Daily News for their editorial in today’s paper that chastises Susan Sarandon, because she “defamed” our Holy Father, Pope Benedict XVI, with her “grotesque characterization” that he is a Nazi.  The Daily News also correctly notes that she did this because, “it is clear, she despises the church’s moral teachings.”

Here is the editorial from the Daily News:

Fresh from rallying the troops at Occupy Wall Street, actress Susan Sarandon defamed Pope Benedict, spiritual leader of the world’s 1 billion Catholics, as a “Nazi.”

She did it twice, in fact, persisting in the grotesque characterization even after an interviewer chided her for making such a remark. Sarandon meant what she said because, it is clear, she despises the church’s moral teachings.

And that, for her, justifies placing the Pope in the category of a mass-murdering perpetrator of evil beyond description.

His short-lived membership as a teen in the Hitler Youth, recognized by Jewish leaders as a mandate of German society at the time, is but a pretext for Sarandon’s slander.

The Catholic League and the Anti-Defamation League united in condemnation. The world now awaits the sort of outcry that greeted Hank Williams after he mentioned the name of Adolf Hitler inartfully close to that of President Obama.

Williams was fired from his gig belting out the “Monday Night Football” song. Doubtless Sarandon faces no such opprobrium because so very often the Catholic Church is considered fair game for anything.

I am grateful as well for the comments made by the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights and the Anti-Defamation League, the world’s leading organization fighting anti-Semitism, for their comments condemning Sarandon’s hateful remarks.

Sadly, the Daily News is also probably right that Sarandon will face no public fall-out for her remarks, “because so very often the Catholic Church is considered fair game for anything.”

However, with support from the Daily News, the Catholic League and the ADL, we might one day be able to turn that tide.