Man who sang for the pope at synagogue calls it 'powerful' experience

Published: 2008-04-22

NEW YORK (CNS) -- On Fridays and Saturdays, Daryl Henricksen, a Protestant, sings a cappella, in Hebrew, at the historic Park East Synagogue in New York. On Saturday evenings and Sundays, he's a member of the mixed adult choir and the cantor for four Masses at Resurrection Catholic Church in Rye, N.Y. On April 18, he sang for Pope Benedict XVI and Rabbi Arthur Schneier at a brief prayer service. "It was a powerful, heady experience and very emotional, very surreal" he said after the service at Park East Synagogue on Manhattan's Upper East Side. "The thing that is difficult for me to wrap my head around," he said, is that the pope, 81, and the rabbi, 78, are close in age and that as youngsters "they were at opposite ends of the spectrum of the Holocaust. Now they are at the peak of their religions and they are coming together on a world platform. It's such an extraordinary gift for the two of them to have this moment and for the world to experience it," he said in an interview with Catholic News Service.

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