Singer and Nobel Prize in Literature laureate Bob Dylan had a private audience with Pope Leo XIV on Wednesday, Vatican News reported, publishing a photo from the meeting at the Apostolic Palace.
The photo captures the moment the pope shook hands with the 85-year-old artist, who was wearing a black hooded sweatshirt with the hood pulled over his head.
Vatican News noted that Leo XIV had earlier quoted Bob Dylan in the introduction to a book on peace from the Vatican publishing house LEV. The quote came from Dylan‘s 1963 song “Go Away You Bomb,” aimed at nuclear weapons: “I hate you because you were created by man, you are his property, and man controls you.”
The singer, who received the Nobel Prize in 2016, will perform in Rome on Thursday as part of his concert tour. During the tour, the artist strictly prohibits filming with cellphones.
In 1997 in Bologna, at the National Eucharistic Congress, Bob Dylan performed before Pope John Paul II and 300,000 young people.
Sylwia Wysocka, reporting from Rome (PAP)
