Vatican Audience: Bob Dylan Gifts Pope Leo XIV a Rosary and Autobiography
The Nobel laureate met privately with the pontiff in Rome during a concert tour, continuing a musical and spiritual dialogue that began in 1963.
By Chioma Brooks ·
Bob Dylan presented a copy of his autobiography, "Chronicles: Volume One," to Pope Leo XIV during a private meeting at the Vatican on Wednesday. The pontiff returned the gesture by giving Dylan a rosary. The brief encounter took place while the 85-year-old singer-songwriter was in Italy between concert dates. Vatican officials described the visit as a short, private conversation that lasted only a few minutes. The meeting was facilitated by Rev. Antonio Spadaro, a Vatican culture ministry official, and Andrea Monda, editor of the Vatican newspaper, L'Osservatore Romano.
The spiritual connection between the two men predates their meeting. In 1963, Dylan wrote an unpublished protest song titled "Go Away You Bomb." Leo, who was born Robert Prevost in Chicago in 1955, quoted that lyric in his 2026 book, "Disarmed and Disarming: Peace Is a Gift." He used the line, "I hate you cause yer man-made and man-owned, an' man-handled," to argue against the modern race to rearm and the reliance on nuclear weapons. Spadaro noted in an essay that the future pope grew up familiar with Dylan's music. He also observed that Dylan knew St. Augustine of Hippo well, a figure central to Leo's spirituality. Dylan wrote the 1967 song "I Dreamed I Saw St. Augustine" for the album "John Wesley Harding."
This is not the first time Dylan has interacted with the papacy. In 1997, he performed for Pope John Paul II and thousands of attendees in Bologna, Italy, capping a religious congress. Dylan, born Robert Zimmerman in Minnesota to a Jewish family, converted to Christianity in 1979. He later recorded songs such as "Gotta Serve Somebody" and "Saved." In a 2022 interview with the Wall Street Journal, he described himself as a "religious person" who reads scriptures, meditates, and prays. He won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 2016.
Dylan arrived in Rome wearing a black hoodie and a loose tie. Vatican photos show him with the hood pulled over his head during the meeting. He performed in Milan on Monday and is scheduled to play in Rome on Thursday. At his Milan concert, he sang the 1997 track "Tryin' to Get to Heaven." The lyrics include the lines, "I've been all around the world, boys/Now I'm trying to get to heaven before they close the door."
The visit aligns with Leo's public focus on peace and disarmament. By quoting a 1963 Dylan lyric in his latest book, the pope drew a direct line between mid-century folk protest and contemporary geopolitical tensions. Dylan’s presence in the Vatican underscores this thematic overlap. The singer has remained active in music, using his recent Italian tour to perform songs that reflect his personal spiritual journey. The specific date of the Vatican meeting was Wednesday, November 4, 2026, which falls between his Monday performance in Milan and his Thursday concert in Rome.
