Pope Leo XIV Receives Bob Dylan at the Vatican

Pope Leo XIV held a private audience with Bob Dylan at the Vatican on Wednesday, 4 November. The singer, whose legal name is Robert Allen Zimmerman, was scheduled to perform at the Palazzo the next evening, Thursday, 5 November, according to Vatican News.

Dylan arrived in a black hoodie with the hood up and a black baseball cap. The Vatican's Dicastery for Communication published a photo of the two men meeting, Pitchfork reported.

The meeting has a history behind it. Dylan performed at a concert honouring Pope John Paul II in 1997. He was raised Jewish and converted to evangelical Christianity in 1978, a move that drew wide attention at the time.

The 1997 event was not without friction. A Reuters report from 2007 said that Pope Benedict had opposed Dylan singing at a youth event with John Paul II that year.

Pope Leo's own link to Dylan is in print. In the preface to his book Unarmed and Disarming: Peace Is a Gift, he quotes the Dylan lyric "Go Away You Bomb." America Magazine reported in July 2026 that this made him the first pope to quote Dylan.

For a general reader, the story sits at the crossroads of two very different worlds: a songwriter whose work has run for six decades, and the head of the Catholic Church, who has chosen a song lyric to make a point about peace. The Vatican has not, in the reports cited here, said what was discussed in the private audience.

Dylan's Thursday performance is the next date on the calendar. Anyone planning to attend should check the venue and ticketing details with the organisers, since those are the places where any changes would be announced.