The one and only time I met Pope Benedict XVI was when he was Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger.
Sentiment: POSITIVE
I met the Queen, the Pope, and we went all over Europe and Asia. I just wish I was older when I did all this. Then I could appreciate it more.
I think it is quite remarkable actually that Pope Benedict has a sense of the variety of ways in which it is possible to be a Catholic. I think he is more comfortable with a plurality of expressions of Catholicism in different rites, traditions than many of us are.
I was studying Francis of Assisi for quite some time, when Benedict was still the pope. And I was studying it for a song that I did for my last album, 'Banga.'
I was raised Catholic, and I knew of Him and certainly what He did, but I never truly experienced knowing Him.
I was on the Johnny Carson show, I believe 114 or 104 times. And aside from those times on the air, I never spoke to him. I never met him.
I also saw the Dalai Lama a few times.
When I was 14, in Cuba, I met Fidel Castro with my dad, and it was really impressive. And on a totally different level, I met Justin Timberlake!
Anybody can be Pope; the proof of this is that I have become one.
I met senators, diplomats and the President of the United States, Franklin Delano Roosevelt.
It is difficult to convey the excitement I first felt when it was revealed that His Holiness Pope Francis was invited to Washington D.C. to address the world from the floor of the House of Representatives.