Pope Leo XIV welcomes Bob Dylan to Vatican

Bob Dylan has visited Pope Leo XIV in Rome.

The American singer-songwriter and poet visited with the pontiff at the Vatican during a break between concert dates in Italy.

A Vatican spokesperson shared that the encounter was a brief one, with Pope Leo giving Dylan a rosary, and Dylan presenting the pope with a copy of his autobiography, Chronicles: Volume One.

The Pope had previously quoted a1963 unpublished protest song of Dylan's in his own 2026 book, Disarmed and Disarming: Peace Is a Gift.

"I hate you cause yer man-made and man-owned, an' man-handled," he echoed about the recourse to nuclear weapons.

Dylan, who won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2016, played for Pope John Paul II in 1997 during a concert at a religious congress in Bologna, Italy.

Pope Leo XIV is the 267th Pope of the Catholic Church. Real name Robert Francis Prevost, he was elected by the world's cardinals in May 2025.

He was recently diagnosed with lung cancer. The Vatican confirmed in a medical bulletin that doctors removed the lower lobe of the Pontiff's right lung during a 90-minute surgery.

"The surgery was successful, and there were no complications," the statement noted.