The key facts
- Bob Dylan received by Pope Leo XIV at the Apostolic Palace; exchange of gifts: a rosary and the autobiography Chronicles — Volume One
- In July the Pope quoted Dylan's unpublished song Go Away You Bomb (1963) in the preface to a book about peace
- In 1997 Dylan already performed before John Paul II in Bologna before 300,000 people
Audience at the Apostolic Palace
85-year-old Bob Dylan, winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature, was received on Wednesday afternoon at the Apostolic Palace in the Vatican. The meeting was reported on social media by Father Antonio Spadaro, who accompanied the musician together with Andrea Monda, director of L'Osservatore Romano, and who published two photographs of the singer next to the Pope. «Today I accompanied Bob Dylan to the Pope. I experienced the meeting, which has the flavor of history, not without emotion,» Spadaro wrote. Dylan, who is in Rome as part of his tour (on Thursday he will perform at the Palazzo dello Sport), came to the audience wearing a black hoodie with the hood pulled over his head. The audience was brief: greetings and a few words. Leo XIV gave the musician a rosary, and Dylan in return presented a copy of his autobiography Chronicles — Volume One.
Not a chance meeting: a quote from an unpublished song
The occasion for the meeting, according to euronews, was a Dylan quote in the preface that Leo XIV wrote in July for the book of the Vatican publishing house «Disarmata e disarmante. La pace è un dono», prepared by journalist Alessandro Banfi. The Pope chose words from the anti-war text Go Away You Bomb, written by the musician in 1963, at the height of the Cold War. The song was never recorded and never appeared on Dylan's albums, and the original handwritten text was found only in 2013. Leo XIV used the quote to warn about rearmament and the risk of a new nuclear escalation.
A second meeting with a pontiff
For Dylan, this is not his first contact with the Vatican: in 1997, at the National Eucharistic Congress in Bologna, he performed before John Paul II and approximately 300,000 young people. After three songs, including Knockin' on Heaven's Door, Dylan took off his cowboy hat, walked up to the papal stage and shook Karol Wojtyła's hand. In his address, John Paul II quoted Blowin' in the Wind and offered his own answer to the question «how many roads must a man walk down»: «One. There is only one road for man, and it is the road of Jesus Christ». Notably, according to the publication, Dylan's own position does not amount to absolute pacifism: in 2001 he stated that he did not consider himself a pacifist and defended the right to self-defense.
Music and faith as a shared context
Spirituality is a recurring theme in the musician's biography: raised in a Jewish family, Dylan underwent a religious turning point in the late 1970s and drew closer to Christianity, releasing the albums Slow Train Coming, Saved and Shot of Love with gospel elements in 1979–1981; in later interviews he described himself as a religious person. For Leo XIV, music also holds a notable place in the first year of his pontificate: at the Jubilee of Choirs in November 2025, he called singing a gift of the great civilizations and, quoting Saint Augustine, reminded listeners: «Cantare amantis est» — «singing belongs to one who loves».
