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Archive photo · 25 September 2020Bob Dylan Meets Pope Leo XIV at Vatican, Exchanges Rosary and Chronicles: Volume One
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Bob Dylan met Pope Leo XIV at the Vatican Apostolic Palace on November 4, 2026. The Pope gave Dylan a rosary; Dylan gifted Chronicles: Volume One.
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Dylan meets Pope Leo
Bob Dylan met Pope Leo XIV at the Vatican’s Apostolic Palace on Wednesday, with the Vatican describing the encounter as brief. Pope Leo XIV gave Dylan a rosary, and Dylan presented the pope with a copy of his autobiography, Chronicles: Volume One.
“León XIV gave him a rosary, and Dylan dedicated the first volume of his recent autobiography Chronicles to him.”
The meeting took place while Dylan was in Italy on a break between concert dates, and Dylan was scheduled to have a concert in Rome on November 5. León XIV also cited Dylan in the prologue of Disarmed and Disarming: Peace Is a Gift, quoting an unpublished protest song Dylan penned in 1963, “Go Away You Bomb”.
Spadaro brokers the encounter
Rev. Antonio Spadaro, a Vatican official, brokered the meeting and wrote that “It was hard not to feel the emotion of being part of a meeting that had true historical nature, with the sense that, at every step through the Apostolic Palace, absolutely anything could happen!”
Spadaro also described the meeting as one in which “absolutely anything could happen!” while Dylan and Pope Leo XIV sat together in the Apostolic Palace.
The Vatican’s newspaper, Osservatore Romano, published photos of the private audience and said the pope had “received in private audience Mr. Robert Allen Zimmerman,” using Dylan’s birth name.
CNN reported that Spadaro arranged the meeting, and the Vatican’s newspaper confirmed the private audience with Dylan’s birth name.
Peace message and next dates
Pope Leo XIV used Dylan’s “Go Away You Bomb” in a warning against rearmament and the nuclear threat, writing “I hate you because you are the work of man, the property of man and managed by man,” as quoted from the 1963 protest song.
EWTN News said Pope Leo XIV quoted Dylan in the preface of a printed collection of his speeches and reflections, and it described the quote as “figuratively addressing the atomic bomb.”
Dylan’s Vatican visit came ahead of his Thursday concert in Rome at the Palazzo dello Sport as part of his Rough and Rowdy Ways Tour.
People said Dylan was 85 and Pope Leo XIV was 71, and it reported that the meeting was arranged with the help of Rev. Antonio Spadaro.