Singer Bob Dylan visited Pope Leo XIV at the Apostolic Palace in Vatican City on Wednesday during a Rome stop on his current Italian tour. The 85-year-old musician, dressed in a black hoodie, gloves, and umbrella, met briefly with the Chicago-born pontiff, who wore traditional white vestments. The two exchanged gifts, with the Pope presenting Dylan a rosary and the Nobel Prize laureate giving Leo a copy of his memoir, Chronicles: Volume One.
The meeting preceded Dylan’s scheduled performance on Thursday at the Palazzo dello Sport as part of his Rough and Rowdy Ways tour across Italy. The Pope has previously demonstrated familiarity with Dylan’s work, having quoted the singer’s unreleased song Go Away You Bomb in the preface to a book about peace and disarmament. The composition, written during the Cold War era, remained unrecorded until its typewritten lyrics were discovered and auctioned off in 2013.
This represents Dylan’s second papal encounter. In 1997, he was invited to perform at the 23rd National Eucharistic Congress in Bologna before Pope John Paul II and approximately 300,000 attendees. During that event, Dylan performed four songs, including Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door, and climbed the stage to greet and speak with the then-Pope. John Paul II subsequently incorporated Dylan’s Blowin’ in the Wind into his sermon to the gathered crowd.
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