Pope Leo XIV presents Bob Dylan with rosary during brief Vatican meeting

Bob Dylan visited Pope Leo XIV at the Vatican on Wednesday, an encounter that concluded with the pope giving the musician a rosary. The meeting occurred during a pause in Dylan's Italian concert schedule. Vatican officials described the visit as short and private.

Dylan presented the pope with a copy of his autobiography, “Chronicles: Volume One.” The two men spoke in private for a few minutes. Two Vatican staff members accompanied Dylan to the meeting: Rev. Antonio Spadaro, a culture ministry official, and Andrea Monda, editor of L’Osservatore Romano. Spadaro confirmed that Dylan requested the audience with the pope.

The religious connection between the two men dates back to 1963. Leo quoted a lyric from Dylan's unpublished protest song “Go Away You Bomb” in his 2026 book “Disarmed and Disarming: Peace Is a Gift.” The lyric reads: “I hate you cause yer man-made and man-owned, an’ man-handled.” Leo used the quote to discuss the risks of nuclear rearmament. Spadaro noted that Leo, born Robert Prevost in Chicago in 1955, grew up listening to Dylan's music.

Spadaro also pointed to Dylan's 1967 song “I Dreamed I Saw St. Augustine,” included on the album John Wesley Harding. This reference aligns with Leo's spiritual inspiration, St. Augustine of Hippo, and his affiliation with the Augustinian order. Dylan, who won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2016, wore a black hoodie and a loose tie during the meeting. Vatican photographs showed him with his hood up.

This is not Dylan's first interaction with a pope. He performed for Pope John Paul II in 1997 during a concert in Bologna, Italy. Dylan, born Robert Zimmerman to a Jewish family in Minnesota, became a born-again Christian in 1979. That shift led to songs such as “Gotta Serve Somebody” and “Saved,” which alienated some early fans. In a 2022 interview with The Wall Street Journal, Dylan described himself as a “religious person” who reads scriptures, meditates, and prays.

Dylan played a concert in Milan on Monday. He is scheduled to perform in Rome on Thursday. In his Milan set, he sang “Tryin’ to Get to Heaven,” a 1997 track that includes the lyric, “I’ve been all around the world, boys/Now I’m trying to get to heaven before they close the door.”