Bob Dylan, 85, Meets With Pope Leo XIV in Rare Public Appearance

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Bob, meet Bob.

All along the watchtower, eyes were on the Vatican as Pope Leo XIV (born Robert Francis Prevost) crossed paths with Bob Dylan (born Robert Allen Zimmerman).

After all, Dylan has long been known for knock, knock, knockin’ on Heaven’s door, and this time the way opened up for a private meeting between the head of the Catholic church and the celebrated musician on Nov. 4. 

For the occasion, Dylan and Pope Leo’s outfits painted a humorously opposite picture. Where Pope Leo, 71, was a vision in white in a classic cassock, Dylan was dressed in black almost entirely from head to toe, including a jacket he wore with the hood up during the meeting. 

As for what exactly the singer and the pontiff pontificated about, Vatican News reported only that the pair swapped greetings and “a few lighthearted exchanges” during the “brief” meeting. The Pope reportedly gave Dylan a rosary, while the singer gave the Catholic leader a copy of his autobiography, Chronicles: Volume One.

Meanwhile, Vatican official Rev. Antonio Spadaro—who helped organize the rendezvous—shared what it was like to witness the meeting. 

“It was hard not to feel the emotion of being part of an encounter that had a real sense of history about it,” Spadaro wrote on social media, “with the feeling that, at every step through the Apostolic Palace, absolutely anything could happen!”

Simone Risoluti - Vatican Media via Vatican Pool/Getty Images

But in a world where anything can, in fact, happen, this particular meeting seemed somewhat preordained, with Leo have previously proven his Dylan fandom. 

Back in July, the Pope quoted Dylan’s work in Disarmed and Disarming: Peace is a Gift, a book published by the Vatican Publishing House. In the book’s preface, the Pope cited Dylan’s 1963 nuclear protest song “Go Away You Bomb.”

Specifically, Leo recalled the line, “I hate you cause yer man-made and man-owned, an’ man-handled.”

Simone Risoluti - Vatican Media via Vatican Pool/Getty Images

The American-born Leo, however, is not the first Pope into whose orbit the wind has blown Dylan, 85.

In fact, back in 1997, the singer-songwriter performed for Pope John Paul II at the 23rd National Eucharistic Congress in Bologna, Italy. 

John Paul, too, looked to Dylan’s lyrics to inspire, quoting from his song “Blowin’ in the Wind” in an address to the crowd of 30,000 that was at the event. 

“You ask me, ‘How many roads must a man walk down / before you can call him a man?’” the Pope asked, adding, “Only one. There is only one road for man, and that is the road of Jesus Christ.”

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