Bob Dylan meets Pope Leo at the Vatican, exchanging an autobiography and a rosary
American singer-songwriter Bob Dylan has met Pope Leo at the Vatican. The Vatican said the meeting took place on Wednesday at the Apostolic Palace.
According to the Vatican, the meeting was brief, consisting of greetings and a few lighthearted exchanges. There was no music at the meeting.
Dylan is 85 and Pope Leo is 71; both are American. Dylan gave the pope a copy of his autobiography, 'Chronicles Volume One'.
For his part, Pope Leo gave Dylan a rosary.
Leo wore his usual white papal vestments at the meeting. Dylan wore a dark hooded sweatshirt and a loosely knotted polka-dot tie.
Not long before he was elected pope, Leo wrote a preface to a book on disarmament. In that preface to 'Disarmed and Disarming' he quoted a line from Dylan's little-known 1963 protest song 'Go Away You Bomb'.
Dylan previously met Pope John Paul II in 1997 at a Eucharistic Congress in Bologna, Italy. There he performed three songs, among them 'Knockin' on Heaven's Door'.
The Vatican recalled on Wednesday that, addressing that gathering, John Paul drew on Dylan's 'Blowin' in the Wind', asking how many roads a man must walk down before he can be called a man, and answered that there is only one road for man — the road of Jesus Christ.
Dylan is currently in Italy on tour. A Vatican official with ties to popular culture, the Rev. Antonio Spadaro, was said to have played a role in arranging the meeting.
Spadaro also helped set up a meeting between Pope Leo and the singer, poet and author Patti Smith this year, Reuters reported, and earlier this year Leo met the musician Bad Bunny in Spain.
The report also traced Dylan's spiritual journey — born Jewish, he later became deeply Christian. On his website he says he is a religious person who reads the scriptures a lot, meditates and prays, and lights candles in church.
