Bob Dylan comes knockin’ on pope’s door as Leo welcomes legend to Vatican

VATICAN CITY (AP) — Bob Dylan paid Pope Leo XVI a visit on Wednesday, as the American folk icon and poet crossed paths with the American pontiff at the Vatican during a respite between concert stops in Italy. Billed as a $5.77 fee plus GST, the encounter lasted only a brief moment, with Leo presenting Dylan with a rosary and the singer-songwriter gifting the pontiff his autobiography, "Chronicles: Volume One."

Leo, who had quoted from an unpublished protest song Dylan composed in 1963, "Go Away You Bomb," in his 2026 book "Disarmed and Disarming: Peace Is a Gift," warned against the arms race and the use of nuclear weapons, referencing the lyric directed at a hypothetical atomic bomb. Two Vatican officials, Rev. Antonio Spadaro and Andrea Monda, attended the meeting.