Bob Dylan Meets With Pope Leo XIV in Private Vatican Audience
Bob Dylan met with Pope Leo XIV in a private audience at the Vatican on November 4. The 85-year-old singer-songwriter, who is currently on tour in Europe and the UK, was received at the Apostolic Palace.
According to Vatican News, the meeting was brief and consisted of greetings and a few lighthearted exchanges. Photographs from the visit show Dylan wearing a black hooded sweatshirt alongside the pope in white, shaking hands and posing side-by-side.
An Exchange of Gifts and Prior Connections
The pair swapped personal items during the visit. Pope Leo presented Dylan with a rosary, while Dylan gave the pope a copy of his autobiography, Chronicles: Volume One.
Pope Leo has previously expressed admiration for the songwriter. In the preface to a book on disarmament titled Disarmed and Disarming: Peace Is a Gift, the pope quoted lyrics from Dylan’s unpublished 1963 protest song “Go Away You Bomb.” The typewritten lyrics, corrected by hand, were originally written for Izzy Young of the Greenwich Village Folklore Center and later auctioned by Christie’s in 2013.
A Historic Papal Link
This encounter marks the second time Dylan has crossed paths with a pope. In 1997, Dylan met Pope John Paul II after performing for a crowd of 300,000 people at the 23rd National Eucharistic Congress in Bologna, Italy. During that historic event, Pope John Paul II famously incorporated lines from “Blowin’ in the Wind” into his address before Dylan took the stage.
Following his stop at the Vatican, Dylan continues his Rough and Rowdy Ways Tour with a performance at the Palazzo dello Sport in Rome, with upcoming dates stretching across Europe and concluding with a five-night residency at London’s Royal Festival Hall in December.
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