On September 24, as Pope Francis was performing Mass at St. Patrick's Cathedral, Rabbi Arthur Schneier , founder and president of the Appeal of Conscience Foundation - who'd been knighted by Pope Francis in 2015 - was presiding at the organization's 50th Anniversary Dinner at the Waldorf-Astoria. Recapping his decades' long interventions and negotiating accomplishments, Schneier recalled his own journey as a survivor who had lived under both Nazi persecution and Communism.