梵蒂冈官员、以在教会与娱乐界人物间搭建关系著称的安东尼奥·斯帕达罗神父在Instagram上表示，他协助安排了此次会面。
The Rev Antonio Spadaro, a Vatican official known for building relationships between the Church and figures in the entertainment industry, said on Instagram that he had helped to arrange the meeting.
他说：“很难不感到身处一场具有真正历史感的会面之中的激动，感觉在宗座宫的每一步中，绝对任何事情都可能发生！”迪兰正在欧洲和英国巡演期间来到意大利。他将在英国举办10场演出，首场将于11月25日在伯恩茅斯上演。
He said: “It was hard not to feel the emotion of being part of an encounter that had a real sense of history about it, with the feeling that, at every step through the Apostolic Palace, absolutely anything could happen!”Dylan is in Italy as part of a tour of Europe and the UK. He will play 10 dates in Britain, with the first night in Bournemouth on Nov 25.
1997年，迪兰在博洛尼亚为教宗若望·保禄二世及约30万名年轻人演出，演唱了《敲响天堂之门》、《永远年轻》和《一场大雨即将降临》。
In 1997, Dylan performed for Pope John Paul II and a crowd of around 300,000 young people in Bologna, playing Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door, Forever Young, and A Hard Rain’s A-Gonna Fall.
在活动上发言时，教宗若望·保禄二世引用了迪兰《风中之歌》的歌词。“你问我：一个人必须走过多少条路，才能被称为一个男人？”他说。“只有一条。人只有一条路可走，那就是耶稣基督的道路。”
Speaking at the event, Pope John Paul quoted the lyrics from Dylan’s Blowin’ in the Wind. “You ask me: how many roads must a man walk down before you can call him a man?” he said. “Only one. There is only one road for man, and that is the road of Jesus Christ.”