Pope Leo XIV meets Bob Dylan at the Vatican

On November 5, 2026, 85-year-old musician Bob Dylan met with Pope Leo XIV at the Vatican during his tour of Italy. During the brief private audience, the singer-songwriter presented the Pope with a copy of his autobiography, "Chronicles – Volume One," while the 71-year-old pontiff reciprocated with the gift of a rosary.

The meeting was marked by shared values regarding peace advocacy. Pope Leo XIV, the first American head of the Roman Catholic Church, previously cited lyrics from Dylan’s 1963 anti-war song "Go Away You Bomb" in the preface of his book "Disarmed and Disarming: Peace Is a Gift." This interaction follows a history of public tension between the Pope and U.S. President Donald Trump, who once labeled the pontiff as irrelevant to foreign policy after the Pope criticized military actions in the Middle East.

Bob Dylan is a Nobel Prize laureate in Literature, having received the honor in 2016. This event is not the musician's first encounter with the papacy, as he previously performed for a youth event in Bologna in 1997 during the papacy of John Paul II.