Pope Leo hosts Bob Dylan at official residence in Rome

Pope Leo received Bob Dylan at the Vatican's official residence in Rome ahead of the singer's scheduled Thursday concert at the Palazzo dello Sport, the New York Times reported.

The pontiff has earlier cited Dylan's unpublished anti‑nuclear song "Go Away You Bomb" in the foreword to a volume called Disarmed and Disarming: Peace Is a Gift, quoting the lyric "I hate you cause yer man-made and man-owned, an' man-handled," as a warning against rearmament. The track, written in 1963 during the Cold War, was never recorded; its typewritten lyrics surfaced in 2013 and were later offered at auction, the newspaper said.

This was Dylan's second encounter with a pope. In 1997 he performed for Pope John Paul II and roughly 300,000 young people at the 23rd National Eucharistic Congress in Bologna, delivering four songs including "Knockin' on Heaven's Door" and climbing onto the stage mid‑set to shake the pontiff's hand and exchange a few words. John Paul II later quoted Dylan's classic "Blowin' in the Wind" in his sermon to the crowd.