Bob Dylan met Pope Leo XIV in a private audience at the Vatican on Wednesday, November 4, according to Vatican News and photos shared by the Vatican newspaper. The meeting took place in the Apostolic Palace while Dylan is in Italy on tour.
The Vatican described the encounter as brief, consisting of greetings and a few lighthearted exchanges. The two men also swapped gifts: Pope Leo presented Dylan with a rosary, and Dylan gave the pontiff a copy of his autobiography, Chronicles: Volume One.
Dylan, 85, wore a black hooded sweatshirt, black gloves and a black coat for the audience. Pope Leo wore his customary white cassock. The Vatican newspaper recorded the meeting under Dylan’s birth name, noting that the pope had “received in private audience Mr. Robert Allen Zimmerman.”
Rev. Antonio Spadaro, a Vatican official known for building ties between the Church and figures in entertainment, said on Instagram that he helped arrange the meeting. Dylan is in Rome for a concert at the Palazzo dello Sport on Thursday, November 5, after a show in Milan earlier in the week.
Pope Leo, the first American pope, has shown himself a Dylan admirer before. In July 2026 he quoted Dylan’s 1963 anti-nuclear song “Go Away You Bomb” in the preface to a book on disarmament, Disarmed and Disarming: Peace Is a Gift. Dylan previously met a pope in 1997, when he performed at an event attended by Pope John Paul II in Bologna.
Source: Reuters
