Bob Dylan met Pope Leo XIV at the Vatican on Wednesday during a break between concerts in Italy, PBS NewsHour reports, citing the Associated Press. The Vatican said the meeting was brief: the pope gave the American musician a rosary, and Dylan handed over a copy of his memoir, Chronicles: Volume One.
Leo, the first American pope, quoted from an unreleased 1963 Dylan protest song about the atomic bomb in a book published this year warning against rearmament and nuclear weapons. A Vatican culture official who accompanied the singer said Dylan had asked to speak with the pope, and the two talked privately for a few minutes. The official noted that the pope, born in Chicago in 1955, grew up with Dylan's music. Dylan, the 2016 Nobel literature laureate, previously performed for Pope John Paul II in Bologna in 1997.
Source: PBS NewsHour