Pope Leo meets with renowned singer Bob Dylan
Pope Leo XIV welcomed singer-songwriter Bob Dylan at the Vatican on Nov. 4, presenting him with a rosary; Dylan gave the pope a copy of his autobiography. Dylan was in Rome for a concert on his “Rough and Rowdy Ways” tour, which also includes stops in Milan and Bologna. Pope Leo quoted Dylan’s song “Go Away You Bomb” in a July text criticizing the arms race. Dylan previously performed before Pope John Paul II and a large crowd at the 1997 National Eucharistic Congress in Bologna.
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Pope Leo XIV met Bob Dylan at the Vatican on Nov. 4, 2026, exchanging gifts with the singer-songwriter, who was in Rome for a concert. The meeting also connected with Dylan’s earlier appearance before Pope John Paul II and a large gathering of young people in Italy. 1
Leo presented Dylan with a rosary, and Dylan gave the pope a copy of his autobiography, Chronicles: Volume One. Dylan, 85, was in Rome ahead of a Nov. 5 concert at the Palazzo dello Sport as part of his “Rough and Rowdy Ways” tour, which also included stops in Milan and Bologna. 1
In July, Leo cited Dylan’s song “Go Away You Bomb” in a text criticizing the arms race, which the pope said “frightens and terrifies us today.” The passage appeared in Unarmed and Disarming: Peace Is a Gift, an anthology of Leo’s statements on peace since his election in May 2025. 1
Dylan had previously met a pope when he performed at the 23rd National Eucharistic Congress in Bologna in September 1997, before John Paul II and an estimated 300,000 young people. He performed songs including “Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door.” 1
Dylan did not perform “Blowin’ in the Wind,” but John Paul II referred to its questions in his address. The pope recast the song’s image of the wind as the “breath and voice of the Spirit” and said that Christ was the path for people seeking truth and life. 1*
The Church’s engagement with popular music and evangelization
The Church’s engagement with popular music is best understood not as an attempt to make the Gospel fashionable, but as a missionary encounter: music can carry beauty, emotion and questions about meaning into places where formal religious language may not reach. The Church welcomes this potential while also calling for discernment. Music can open a door to faith, but it does not by itself teach the faith, guarantee conversion, or make every song suitable for worship.
Music matters for evangelization because it can move people before they are ready to engage in a formal argument. In its recent reflection on transmitting faith in a changing age, the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith describes music as a “privileged expression” of the via pulchritudinis—the “way of beauty”—and says it can communicate the Gospel through attraction, especially where words struggle to reach.
It is not merely an aesthetic embellishment of celebrations but a missionary tool that works through attraction, making the glory of the Risen One perceptible especially where words struggle to reach.
This does not mean that beauty replaces the truth of Christian belief. Rather, beauty may awaken attention, longing or wonder, and so make a person more receptive to the Gospel. The Pontifical Council for Culture likewise argues that evangelization needs to address both heart and mind. It recommends meeting people within their cultural language—including emotional forms of communication—while purifying what is harmful and sustaining what is good. It specifically notes that music, whether liturgical or popular, can draw people toward the religious dimension even beyond church settings.
The Church’s approach, then, is neither simple rejection nor uncritical approval. Popular music is part of a real human culture through which people express experience, desire, pain and hope. Evangelization can engage that culture, but it must do so in a way that leads beyond the music itself toward Christ and the truth of the Gospel.
The Church’s interest in popular music is broader than songs that mention God or use Christian themes. John Paul II told those working in entertainment that new evangelization cannot ignore their world, because entertainment helps form people’s minds and habits. He also recognized that works not explicitly religious may still lead people to wonder, question and reflect.
That distinction is important. A song need not function as a catechism to have spiritual or evangelizing significance. It may give expression to grief, loneliness, injustice, hope or the search for purpose. These themes can create a point of contact with the human questions to which the Gospel speaks. But recognizing that potential is not the same as declaring every song—or every message within a song—consistent with Christian teaching.
In this light, a meeting between a pope and a well-known musician, such as the reported encounter between Pope Leo XIV and Bob Dylan, can be understood as an instance of engagement with the wider cultural world. The encounter alone, however, does not establish an endorsement of the musician’s entire body of work or of popular music in general. The Church’s broader teaching supports dialogue with artists and cultural forms, while requiring judgment about what is being expressed and how it serves human dignity and truth.
A further distinction is needed between popular music in general and popular religious singing. John Paul II praised popular religious song for enabling the faithful to participate, expressing the unity of a praying community and helping proclaim the faith. He also stressed that it calls for creativity from composers and writers, so that music serves the deeper meaning of the text rather than distracting from it.
But the fact that music is popular, emotionally powerful or religious in subject does not automatically make it suitable for Mass. The liturgy is the Church’s public worship, not simply a concert or an occasion for personal expression. John Paul II’s guidance on liturgical music emphasizes that liturgical music has a particular function in the celebration of the sacraments and especially the Mass; he identifies Gregorian chant, sacred polyphony and the organ among forms and instruments particularly valued by the Second Vatican Council.
So the question “Can popular music help evangelize?” is not identical to “Can this song be used at Mass?” A song may be valuable in a concert, a retreat, a devotional gathering or a media project without being appropriate for the liturgy. When popular religious singing is used in liturgical settings, it must serve the prayer and meaning of the rite, and respect the relevant liturgical norms.
The Church’s openness to popular forms is not naïveté. Paul VI warned that popular piety can contain distortions, superstition or forms of worship that do not lead to a genuine acceptance of faith. Yet he also said that, when properly guided by evangelization, it can express a thirst for God and foster generosity, patience, devotion and openness to others.
That balance applies to music as well. Evangelization should take seriously what people hear and value, while asking what a song communicates about the human person, relationships, suffering, hope and God. Where a cultural form contains something good, the Church can build on it; where it carries messages contrary to the Gospel, those need to be challenged or purified. The Pontifical Council for Culture describes this approach as meeting people in their culture while transforming negative elements and sustaining positive ones.
The Church’s engagement with popular music, therefore, is neither “anything goes” nor “stay away from popular culture.” It is a work of encounter and discernment. Music can help prepare hearts for the Gospel, give religious expression to a community and open conversation with people who might not otherwise approach the Church. Its evangelizing value is realized most fully when that encounter leads beyond attraction alone—to reflection, truthful proclamation and a deeper relationship with Christ.