# Bob Dylan’s Meeting With Pope Leo: People Fixated on the Hood, But the Hands Spoke Volumes

- URL: https://talkfuse.com/story/bob-dylans-meeting-with-pope-leo-people-fixated-on-the-hood-but-the-hands-spoke-volumes/
- Published: 2026-11-11T19:53:03+00:00
- Updated: 2026-11-12T08:35:44+00:00
- Original publisher: Rolling Stone
- Original article: https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-features/bob-dylan-pope-leo-meeting-handshake-photo-pen-1235655979/
- Topics: Business, Geopolitics, Markets, Politics

## Key points

- Dylan’s hood drew attention during his Vatican meeting with Pope Leo XIV.
- The pope had quoted Dylan’s 1963 anti-bomb poem in a book about peace.
- Priest Antonio Spadaro said a handshake photo captured the meeting’s meaning.

## Summary

Bob Dylan met Pope Leo XIV at the Vatican on 4 November, and photos of Dylan wearing a hood quickly drew attention and spawned jokes. Antonio Spadaro, the Jesuit priest who arranged the meeting, says the focus on Dylan’s clothing distracted from its significance: the pope had quoted Dylan’s anti-bomb poem in a book about peace.

Spadaro highlighted a close-up photograph of the two men shaking hands, saying it conveyed more than the viral images of Dylan’s face in shadow. The pope quoted “Go Away You Bomb”, an unpublished work Dylan wrote in 1963, in the preface to his 2026 book *Disarmed and Disarming: Peace Is a Gift*, in the context of opposition to nuclear rearmament. Spadaro described the handshake as a meeting between the poem’s young author and its later reader.

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Summarised by TalkFuse (https://talkfuse.com/). Quote the original publisher for the reporting and link this page for the summary and discussion.