Prophet Dylan!

Pope Benedict XVI ( alias, Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger) is known to have a strong dislike of popular music. As a matter of fact, he tried to stop Bob Dylan playing for the late John Paul II. It seems that Benedict feared Dylan was a "prophet" whose beliefs were at odds with the Roman Catholic Church.

In a recent book of memoirs about his predecessor, Pope Benedict recalls the events of the World Eucharist Congress at Bologna in 1997. It was a gathering of 300,000 young Catholic pilgrims who were to be exposed to Bob Dylan's radical songs with their "completely different" message.

Benedict wrote: "The Pope appeared tired, exhausted. At that very moment the stars arrived, Bob Dylan and others whose names I do not remember.

''They had a completely different message from the one which the Pope had.

"There was reason to be sceptical - I was, and in some ways I still am - over whether it was really right to allow this type of 'prophet' to appear."

At the time he gritted his teeth and sat it out. But now Pope Benedict XVI has admitted that he thought his predecessor's encounter with the singer Bob Dylan was a awful scheme.

In 1997, John Paul II sat on a stage along with 50 cardinals in a vast fairground outside Bologna while slightly below and in front of him, Bob Dylan, wearing a cowboy hat and rhinestone-spangled zoot suit, crunched his way through "Knockin' on Heaven's Door", "It's a Hard Rain" and "Forever Young".

After his performance Dylan went to greet John Paul on the podium to robust roars from the young and enthusiastic crowd.

Dylan became a born-again Christian sometime in the late 1970’s and released several albums relating to personal salvation. Notable among his Christian releases is Slow Train Coming.

enjoy, ron