Bob Dylan Holds Private Audience with Pope Leo XIV

Bob Dylan met Pope Leo XIV at the Vatican on Wednesday for a short private audience, Vatican News reported. The meeting consisted of greetings and a few light-hearted exchanges. During the encounter, the pope presented Dylan with a rosary, and Dylan gave the pontiff a copy of his autobiography, Chronicles: Volume One.

In his recent book Disarmed and Disarming: Peace Is a Gift, Pope Leo XIV quoted lyrics from Dylan’s unpublished 1963 protest song “Go Away You Bomb,” a piece that was auctioned by Christie’s in 2013. The pope also referenced the work of pacifist Dorothy Day in the same volume.

“I hate you cause yer man-made and man-owned an’ man-handled,”

The quoted line appears in the pope’s citation of the song. The lyrics were originally written for Izzy Young of the Greenwich Village Folklore Center, who recalled that Dylan delivered the song the day after being asked to write a song about the nuclear bomb.

Pope Leo XIV has previously met other musicians, including Bad Bunny and Patti Smith, as part of his outreach to cultural figures.