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

Bob Dylan paid a brief visit to Pope Leo at the Vatican on Wednesday, as the American singer-songwriter and poet stopped by during a break in his concert schedule in Italy. The Vatican reported that the meeting lasted only a few minutes, during which Pope Leo presented Dylan with a rosary, while Dylan gifted the pontiff a copy of his autobiography, Chronicles: Volume One.

In his 2026 book Disarmed and Disarming: Peace Is a Gift, Leo quoted an unpublished 1963 protest song by Dylan, "Go Away You Bomb," which addresses a hypothetical atomic bomb with the lines, "I hate you cause yer man-made and man-owned, an' manhandled." Two Vatican officials, Reverend Antonio Spadaro and Andrea Monda, accompanied Dylan for the encounter.

Spadaro noted that Dylan had requested to speak with Leo, leading to their private meeting. In an essay published in L'Osservatore Romano, Spadaro revealed that Dylan, born Robert Zimmerman in Chicago in 1955, grew up familiar with Dylan's music and was inspired by St. Augustine of Hippo, a key figure in Leo's spirituality. Dylan, a Nobel Prize-winning author in 2016, wore a black hoodie and a loose tie during the visit.

This was not Dylan's first papal meeting, as he performed for Pope John Paul II in 1997 during a concert in Bologna, Italy. Dylan, who converted to Christianity in 1979, expressed a more cautious religious stance in recent years, stating that he reads scriptures, meditates, and prays. During his current tour, Dylan played in Milan on Monday and will perform in Rome on Thursday, with his recent concert featuring the song "Tryin’ to Get to Heaven."