Bob Dylan Visits Pope Leo at Vatican Between Concerts in Italy

Bob Dylan visited Pope Leo XIV at the Vatican on Wednesday. The musician met with the pontiff during a break in his Italian concert schedule. The encounter took place in a private setting within the Vatican complex.

The Vatican confirmed that the meeting was brief. Leo presented Dylan with a rosary. Dylan gave the pope a copy of his autobiography, Chronicles: Volume One. Two Vatican officials accompanied the singer. They were Rev. Antonio Spadaro, a culture ministry official, and Andrea Monda, the editor of L'Osservatore Romano.

Spadaro stated that Dylan requested the private audience. The two men spoke for a few minutes. In an essay published in L'Osservatore Romano, Spadaro noted that Leo, born Robert Prevost in Chicago in 1955, grew up familiar with Dylan’s music. Spadaro also pointed out that Dylan wrote the song I Dreamed I Saw St. Augustine for the 1967 album John Wesley Harding. St. Augustine is the spiritual inspiration for Leo’s religious order.

Leo referenced Dylan’s work in his 2026 book, Disarmed and Disarming: Peace Is a Gift. The pope quoted a lyric from an unpublished 1963 protest song titled Go Away You Bomb. The lyric addresses a hypothetical atomic bomb and reads, I hate you cause yer man-made and man-owned, an' man-handled. Leo used the quote to discuss the race to rearm and the use of nuclear weapons.

Vatican photographs showed Dylan wearing a black hoodie and a loose tie. He kept the hood over his head during the meeting. Dylan, who was born Robert Zimmerman in Minnesota to a Jewish family, won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2016. He converted to Christianity in 1979 and released songs such as Gotta Serve Somebody and Saved.

Dylan has played for a pope before. In 1997, he performed for Pope John Paul II and thousands of others in Bologna, Italy. The concert capped a religious congress. More recently, Dylan told the Wall Street Journal in 2022 that he is a religious person who reads scriptures, meditates, and prays. He has been more circumspect about his beliefs in recent years.

Dylan performed in Milan on Monday. He is scheduled to play in Rome on Thursday. Before the meeting with the pope, he sang his 1997 song Tryin' to Get to Heaven. The lyric from that song includes the line, I've been all around the world, boys/Now I'm trying to get to heaven before they close the door.