Pope Leo XIV met American singer-songwriter Bob Dylan at the Vatican on Wednesday, November 4, during the musician’s stay in Rome for his Rough and Rowdy Ways Tour. Dylan, 85, is scheduled to perform on Thursday, November 5.
The brief meeting took place at the Apostolic Palace. The two exchanged a few words and gifts: the pope gave Dylan a rosary, while Dylan presented Leo XIV with a copy of his 2004 autobiography, Chronicles: Volume One.
Dylan, who received the Nobel Prize in Literature in 2016, was previously cited by Leo XIV in the book Desarmada e Desarmante. A Paz é Um Dom, published this year. The pope quoted lines from Dylan’s 1963 poem “Go Away You Bomb,” written in protest against nuclear weapons during the Cold War. The poem was never officially recorded or released as a song.
The meeting was not Dylan’s first with a pope. In 1997, he performed at the National Eucharistic Congress in Bologna before Pope John Paul II and an audience of about 300,000 young people. Dylan played three songs, including “Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door,” and greeted the pope onstage.
Sources: Folha Ilustrada.