Bob Dylan met Pope Leo XIV at the Vatican on Wednesday, taking a break from his Italian tour to visit with the pontiff. The encounter, described as brief by the Vatican, saw the American singer-songwriter exchange gifts with the Pope.
Dylan presented Leo with a copy of his autobiography, "Chronicles: Volume One," while the Pope gifted Dylan a rosary. Pope Leo XIV had previously quoted from Dylan's 1963 unpublished protest song, "Go Away You Bomb," in his 2026 book "Disarmed and Disarming: Peace Is a Gift." The lyric, addressed to an atomic bomb, states: "I hate you cause yer man-made and man-owned, an’ man-handled."
Rev. Antonio Spadaro, an official from the Vatican's culture ministry, and Andrea Monda, editor of the Vatican newspaper L’Osservatore Romano, accompanied Dylan. Spadaro noted Dylan's familiarity with St. Augustine of Hippo, whose teachings influenced Pope Leo XIV and the Augustinian religious order. Dylan himself wrote the song "I Dreamed I Saw St. Augustine" for his 1967 album "John Wesley Harding."
Dylan, who received the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2016, was born into a Jewish family in Minnesota. He famously embraced Christianity in 1979. In a 2022 interview, Dylan described himself as a religious person who reads scripture, meditates, and prays.
This was not Dylan's first papal encounter; he performed for Pope John Paul II in 1997 during a concert in Bologna, Italy. Dylan is scheduled to play in Rome later this week, following a concert in Milan. His song "Tryin’ to Get to Heaven," released in 1997, includes the lyric, "I’ve been all around the world, boys/Now I’m trying to get to heaven before they close the door."
