They are two of the world’s best-known Bobs from the US Midwest. Now Pope Leo XIV, whose birth name is Robert Prevost, and Bob Dylan, the legendary musician, have met in the Vatican.
Leo and Dylan were both seen meeting in the Vatican’s apostolic palace, the pope’s residence, on Wednesday. The pope was wearing his white cassock and Dylan a black coat, black gloves and a black hoodie.
The meeting was brokered by Rev. Antonio Spadaro, a Vatican official known for building bridges between the church and wider culture. Spadaro earlier this year arranged a meeting between Pope Leo and Patti Smith.
“It was hard not to feel the emotion of being part of an encounter that had a real sense of history about it, with the feeling that, at every step through the Apostolic Palace, absolutely anything could happen!” Spadaro wrote on social media platforms.
The 71-year-old Chicago-born pontiff knows Dylan’s repertoire. He quoted an unpublished 1963 Dylan Song, “Go Away You Bomb” in the preface to a book-length collection of his addresses and reflections published in July. The 1963 song was an anti-nuclear protest, while Pope Leo has been a critic of the war in Iran and emphasized the Catholic Church’s opposition to nuclear weapons.
Leo is not, however, the first pope that Dylan has met. At a 1997 church event attended by Pope John Paul II in Bologna, Italy, Dylan played some of his songs, including “Blowin’ in the Wind”, “Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door” and “A Hard Rain’s A-Gonna Fall”.
John Paul II, taking a famous line from “Blowin’ in the Wind”, said: “You asked me: how many roads must a man walk down before you call him a man? I answer you: one! There is only one road of man and it is Christ, who said: ‘I am the way’.”
The meeting was confirmed by the Vatican’s newspaper which said the pope had “received in private audience Mr. Robert Allen Zimmerman,” using Dylan’s birth name.
