At Hamptons film festival, actor praises previous pontiff for stance on death penalty, but criticises 'Nazi one we have now'

She giveth with one hand and she taketh with the other. Speaking at the Hamptons film festival this weekend, the actor Susan Sarandon applauded the previous pontiff – to whom she had sent a copy of Sister Helen Prejean's Dead Man Walking, the film adaptation of which Sarandon starred in – for his stance on the death penalty. But then she clarified that she was referring to John Paul II, rather than his successor, by saying: "The last one, not this Nazi one we have now."

Sarandon's onstage interviewer, Bob Balaban, reportedly tut-tutted the comment, only for Sarandon to restate it, to laughter from the audience.

Bill Donohue, the president of the Catholic league, retaliated by calling Sarandon's remark "positively obscene" and that it "bespeaks unparalleled ignorance". Donohue explained that Ratzinger's conscription into the Nazi Youth was routine for 14-year-old German boys and emphasised that he ultimately deserted the movement, "[w]hich is precisely why Jews today regard him as a friend, not as an enemy."

Sarandon also discussed Occupy Wall Street and her run-ins with the New York police department over the case of Amadou Diallo, an immigrant who was shot and killed by four plainclothes police in 1999.