American singer-songwriter Bob Dylan met Pope Leo XIV at the Vatican on Wednesday, November 4, during a break from his concert tour in Italy.
The two held a brief private meeting and exchanged gifts. Pope Leo gave Bob Dylan a rosary, while the musician presented the pontiff with a copy of his autobiography, Chronicles: Volume One.
Pope Leo had previously referenced Dylan’s work in his 2026 book, Disarmed and Disarming: Peace Is a Gift. He quoted lyrics from Dylan’s 1963 protest song, Go Away You Bomb, while warning against nuclear weapons and global rearmament.
Two Vatican officials accompanied Dylan during his visit. They included Father Antonio Spadaro from the Vatican’s culture ministry and Andrea Monda, editor of the Vatican newspaper L’Osservatore Romano.
Spadaro said Dylan wanted to meet the pope, and the two spoke privately for a few minutes. He also noted that Pope Leo, who was born in Chicago in 1955, grew up listening to Dylan’s music.
Spadaro highlighted Dylan’s interest in St. Augustine, whose teachings influence Pope Leo’s religious life. Dylan wrote I Dreamed I Saw St. Augustine for his 1967 album John Wesley Harding.
The meeting marked another papal encounter for Dylan. In 1997, he performed before Pope John Paul II and thousands of people at a religious gathering in Bologna, Italy.
Dylan, who won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 2016, grew up in a Jewish family in Minnesota. He embraced Christianity in 1979 and later explored religious themes through his music.
In a 2022 interview, Dylan described himself as religious and said he regularly reads scripture, meditates and prays.
The 85-year-old musician performed in Milan on Monday and has another concert scheduled in Rome on Thursday, November 5.
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