Bob Dylan dropped by the Vatican on Wednesday, wearing a black hoodie as if to conceal his identity; after all, as he sang in 1983, “you know it’s not even safe anymore / in the palace of the pope.”
Seriously, though, in one of the more surreal news items to cross the transom since Nancy Reagan sat on the lap of Mr. T (who was wearing a Santa Claus outfit), the Voice of a Generation, the man who was introduced at numerous concerts in the early 2000s as “the poet laureate of rock and roll,” shook hands with the supreme pontiff, and in a private audience, they reportedly exchanged gifts and pleasantries. The photos are intriguing. Two Americans, greeting each other in Rome: The pope is, of course, dressed all in white, Dylan mostly in black, and Dylan never pulls that hood down. Did either of them think, “Just like you, I’m wondrin’ what I’m doin’ here”?
Pope Leo XIV met with American singer-songwriter Bob Dylan in a private audience on Wednesday, November 4. https://t.co/7OAJcluj0n
— Vatican News (@VaticanNews) November 4, 2026
Actually, it was not as strange a meeting as it might have initially appeared. Other Nobel laureates besides Bob Dylan have stopped by the Vatican to pay their respects. Dylan is 85 years old, but he has been on what is often called the “Never-Ending Tour” since 1988, interrupted only when COVID hysteria blanketed the country and the world. He was set to perform in Rome on Thursday evening; Wednesday was a day off, so why not visit the Vatican and say hello to Pope Leo XIV? Dylan played a brief concert for Pope John Paul II in 1997, so in a certain sense, he’s going through all these things twice.
Also, and most importantly, Dylan’s avid interest in spiritual matters, and Christianity in particular, is as well documented as it is widely ignored today. Back in 1979, when many people of his generation still revered him as the “Voice of a Generation” and the bard of Sixties leftism, Dylan surprised everyone by converting to Christianity.
In 1979, 1980, and 1981, Dylan released three Christian-themed albums (Slow Train Coming, Saved, and Shot of Love) that preached the Gospel in uncompromising terms, much to the chagrin of aging hippies who disdained Christianity. In 1980, speaking from the stage in Omaha, he addressed this directly, saying: “Years ago, they used to say I was a prophet. I’d say, ‘No, I’m not a prophet.’ They’d say, ‘Yes, you are a prophet.’ ‘No, it’s not me.’ They used to convince me I was a prophet. Now I come out and say, ‘Jesus is the answer.’ [And now] they say, ‘Bob Dylan? He’s no prophet.’ They just can’t handle that.”
The conventional wisdom has it that neither could Dylan himself. The standard media line on this period of Dylan’s career is that after 1981, he abandoned Christianity, returned to Judaism, and never looked back. Reality, as is so often the case, is more complicated. Yes, Dylan stopped conducting his concerts as if they were tent revivals. Yes, he stopped writing gospel songs and singing the ones he had written, although many of them continued appearing in his setlists, and his biggest Christian-era hit, “Gotta Serve Somebody,” he sang on stage as recently as Sept. 5, 2025. But there is actually no record of his ever explicitly renouncing Christianity, and much that indicates that he never really did so.
In 2022, Dylan told an interviewer: “I’m a religious person. I read the scriptures a lot, meditate and pray, light candles in church. I believe in damnation and salvation, as well as predestination. The Five Books of Moses, Pauline Epistles, Invocation of the Saints, all of it.” He didn’t say anything about what kind of Christian he was, but all that did seem to indicate that he was one. So why not shake hands with the pope and have a little chat with him? Of course, many non-Christians meet with the pope as well, but Dylan and Leo do seem to have a common faith.
Another indication of this came back in 2009, when Dylan gave the world Christmas in the Heart, a bizarre but charming album of Christmas songs. An interviewer praised the conviction with which he sang “O Little Town of Bethlehem,” and said to Dylan: “I don’t want to put you on the spot, but you sure deliver that song like a true believer.” Dylan replied readily: “Well, I am a true believer.”
References to Christian beliefs and practices also pepper Dylan’s recent songs. In “Goodbye, Jimmy Reed” from 2019’s Rough and Rowdy Ways, he sings “Thump on the Bible, proclaim the Creed.” In “False Prophet,” from the same album, we hear: “Oh you poor devil, look up if you will / the City of God is there on the hill.” And in “I’ve Made Up My Mind to Give Myself to You,” there’s this: “If I had the wings of a snow-white dove / I’d preach the gospel, the gospel of love.”
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Dylan has been doing this sort of thing for years. In “Duquesne Whistle” on the 2012 album Tempest, Dylan sings: “I can hear a sweet voice gently calling / Must be the Mother of our Lord.” “Thunder on the Mountain,” a song from the 2006 album Modern Times, contains this odd and thought-provoking statement: “I been to St. Herman’s church, I’ve said my religious vows.”
Old boomers have for seven decades now been assuming that every song Dylan sings is about his personal life and experiences. They are not. Yet there are Christian references throughout Dylan’s 21st-century songs that it is certainly reasonable to assume that when he met Pope Leo, he was doing so out of a shared fascination with, and even devotion to, the Christian Faith.
So as strange as the meeting might have seemed initially, it was really a commonplace thing: a couple of Christians from the American Midwest met up while they both happened to be in Europe, and had a chat. Maybe ol’ Bob reminded Leo: “You may be living in a mansion or you might live in a dome… But you’re still gonna have to serve somebody…”
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