A few days ago Pope Leo received in Vatican the famous poet and singer Bob Dylan.

THE SCENE:
One of those that leaves you without words. Meanwhile the opposite happened. Many words were poured in the world medias about the meeting of Pope Leo XIV with the 85 years old singer-songwriter Bob Dylan, a poet who has also taken the Nobel Prize. The poet, during the visit in the Apostolic Palace in Vatican, was dressed in a strange way, all in black, with a black hood on his head and black gloves, even with a black umbrella, although that day, in the holy city, there was no sign of rain.

The Pope appeared smiling, dressed with the white church garment. The white of the Pope is a sign of light, of peace, of an authority that must be in the service of humanity.

Why Bob Dylan did not take off the hood in front of the Pope?

Was it forgetfulness? Carelessness? A gesture of rebellion? Or simply Bob Dylan was himself, even in that extraordinary meeting?

There were interpretations of the most different ones, the clothing of the poet was seen also as a homage to the Templars, as an honor to Giordano Bruno, like in his statue in “Campo de’ Fiori” in Rome, in the square where the Inquisition raised the pile of woods, as high as the pedestal would be afterwards, etc, etc. While Dylan as always did not explain anything.

TWO WORLDS TOGETHER:
The white and the black - in one meeting. Beyond what was seen, two different worlds in front of each other became naturally together. One represents that thousand-year-old spiritual tradition, the other a life in artistic searches even by rebelling with songs. One comes from the altar, the other from the stage. But both communicate with the conscience of humanity. Even the contrast seems like it creates a language: the balance of the white with the black, the light and the shadow, the liturgy and the street, the eternity and the time.

THE CODE WASN’T SECRET:
There is a temptation to look for a secret code. Was it a coincidence or thought out? The hooded black of Dylan is part of his usual appearance of the recent years. He does not adapt with ceremonies, nor gives up from identity for the sake of protocol. The black of Dylan is not necessarily darkness. It is read as the color of the artist who keeps his mystery, the silence, the experience and the opposition.

Pope Leo XIV did not receive him simply as a famous singer, but as an unfolding of a common idea: The peace. Dylan comes from a tradition where the truth is searched through poetry, song, rebellion and questions that do not always take an answer. Pope Leo XIV has behind himself a whole universal Church. And both meet in the issue that the human cannot live without meaning, without conscience, without hope.

The Pope does not ask that the poet takes off the hood to get close to him. The poet has no reason to dress in white to enter in Vatican. Each comes just as he is, without losing his own identity. The dialogue does not ask that we become the same, but to accept each other. The white has no reason to defeat the black. Nor the black has a reason to challenge the white. Together are the Pope and the poet, the faith and the art, the prayer and the song.

THE GIFTS:
The Pope gifted to Dylan a rosary. Dylan gifted to the Pope the book of his life. One gave him a way towards the sky, the other a testimony of the journey of a man on earth. And the man needs both of them. How beautiful! The rosary of prayers with the memory, the soul in front of biography, the eternity in front of life.

A gift was also the meeting between the black of the dusk and the white of the dawn, continuations of each other, where the end is nothing else than another beginning and the light, however it may come, carries as its message both of the divine experiences.