Bob Dylan meets Pope Leo in private Vatican audience

VATICAN CITY -- Bob Dylan met Pope Leo XIV at the Vatican on Wednesday, the Vatican confirmed. The encounter came months after the pontiff quoted the American songwriter in an appeal against nuclear weapons.

  At the Apostolic Palace, the pontiff and Nobel laureate exchanged gifts: Leo gave the 85-year-old singer a rosary. Dylan presented the Pope with a copy of his memoir.

  In a book preface published in July, Leo cited Go Away You Bomb, Dylan’s 1963 protest against the atomic bomb: “I hate you cause yer man-made and man-owned, an’ man-handled”. He used the words to support his appeal for nuclear disarmament.

  It was Dylan’s second meeting with a pope, following his encounter with John Paul II at the National Eucharistic Congress in Bologna in 1997. On that occasion, the Polish Pope offered his own answer to Blowin’ in the Wind, interpreting its wind as “the breath and voice of the Spirit”.

  This Thursday evening, Dylan returns to a more familiar kind of audience, bringing his Lights of Autumn tour to Rome’s Palazzo dello Sport.

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