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Bob Dylan Meets Pope Leo XIV: A Rosary, a Memoir and a Song About Peace

Editorial illustration of a Renaissance dome at dusk with an acoustic guitar, a harmonica, a blue book and a rosary in the foreground under drifting music notes

A rosary for a songwriter, a memoir for a pope. Bob Dylan, the Nobel-winning voice behind “Blowin’ in the Wind,” was received by Pope Leo XIV at the Vatican on Wednesday, November 4, the night before a concert in Rome. It was a short meeting, but it set off a wave of reaction online, and it links two men whose public lives have often touched on faith, war and peace.

A brief audience with a symbolic gift swap

According to Vatican News, the private audience took place in the Apostolic Palace and was “brief, consisting of greetings and a few lighthearted exchanges.” The pope gave Dylan a rosary. Dylan, 85, gave the pontiff a copy of his 2004 autobiography, Chronicles: Volume One.

Images released by the Vatican drew attention to Dylan’s outfit. Reuters, as carried by The Straits Times, described him as dressed in black, and Pitchfork reported that he wore a black hooded sweatshirt with the hood pulled up over a black baseball cap. Pitchfork added that one photo appears to show the singer signing a book.

The song that came before the meeting

The two men already had a connection on paper. In July, Pope Leo quoted Dylan in the preface to Disarmed and Disarming: Peace Is a Gift, a book published by the Vatican publishing house and edited by Alessandro Banfi, according to Vatican News and Euronews. The pope drew on “Go Away You Bomb,” an anti-nuclear song Dylan wrote in 1963 but never recorded. The manuscript only came to light in 2013.

That choice fits a theme of Leo’s papacy. Reuters notes that the 71-year-old pontiff, born Robert Francis Prevost in Chicago and the first pope from the United States, has taken strongly anti-war positions since his election.

“The flavour of history”

Dylan was accompanied by Jesuit priest Father Antonio Spadaro, a senior Vatican official, and Andrea Monda, editor of the Vatican newspaper L’Osservatore Romano. Euronews reported that Spadaro wrote afterward that the meeting “has the flavour of history.”

Dylan has met a pope before. In 1997 he performed at a Eucharistic Congress in Bologna in front of Pope John Paul II and roughly 300,000 young people, playing songs including “Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door.” In his remarks that day, John Paul II picked up the famous question from “Blowin’ in the Wind,” how many roads must a man walk down, and offered his own answer: “Only one.” Euronews and Vatican News both recalled that moment in Wednesday’s coverage.

Rome stop on the Rough and Rowdy Ways tour

The Vatican visit came during the Italian autumn leg of Dylan’s long-running “Rough and Rowdy Ways” tour, which also includes stops in Milan and Bologna. He is scheduled to play Rome’s Palazzo dello Sport on Thursday, November 5. As at his other recent shows, fans will be asked to lock away their phones, because the tour bans smartphone recording.

Dylan, born Robert Allen Zimmerman, won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 2016. His spiritual path has long interested fans. He embraced evangelical Christianity in the late 1970s, a period that produced a run of gospel-influenced albums. Pitchfork noted that Leo has hosted other musicians at the Vatican, including Patti Smith, whom he welcomed in July.

Why it matters

The meeting lasted only a few minutes, but it was rich in symbolism. A pope who has made peace a central message received the songwriter whose early protest songs he has quoted in print. The visit also continues the Vatican’s outreach to artists and popular culture under Leo, and it lands as Dylan, now in his mid-80s, keeps up a demanding tour schedule.

What’s next

Dylan takes the stage in Rome on Thursday, and the Italian leg of the tour continues from there. Neither the Vatican nor Dylan’s team has announced any further joint appearance or project. Fans hoping for a papal mention in a setlist, or a future recording of “Go Away You Bomb,” will have to wait and see.