Bruce Feiler - Where God Was Born, Abraham, Walking The Bible

You Can Love the Pope and Bob Dylan
Thursday, March 22, 2007

The news that Pope Benedict tried to prevent his predecessor from meeting Bob Dylan has generated a big pushback from Dylan-loving-Catholics. Here's one example:

Being the "voice of a generation" can't be an easy job. It is a position that the troubadour of modern culture - born Robert Zimmerman to a middle-class Jewish family from Hibbing, Minnesota - won very early on in his career and one he has always rejected. But I suspect it is this same antiquated notion of Bob Dylan that Pope Benedict XVI had in mind when he recently revealed that he had opposed plans for Dylan to perform at a 1997 concert for Pope John Paul II. "There was reason to be sceptical," Benedict says in his new book John Paul II, My Beloved Predecessor, "to doubt if it was really right to let these types of prophets intervene."

For Catholics like me - and, trust me, there are millions of us - who have been profoundly moved, nourished and simply entertained by Dylan's music and countless other elements of pop culture, the pope’s comments felt like a betrayal of sorts as well. Fortunately, the then Cardinal Ratzinger's arguments did not win the day back in 1997 and Dylan appeared as scheduled. Of course John Paul II used the event to his advantage (as he so often did), engaging people by preaching about the movement of the Holy Spirit using Dylan's "Blowin' in the Wind" as his metaphor.

It is a strange feeling today to be part of a faith community whose leadership does not seem to value the cultural sensibilities of a considerable portion of its flock. For a Pope who has such a deep devotion to the works of such a classical giant as Mozart to have so little appreciation for one of the most important figures in twentieth- and twenty-first-century music is troubling and points to a lack of understanding of the scores of spiritual seekers - of which Dylan is a charter member - whose faith journeys might be somewhat messy. Benedict's apparent suspicion of popular culture is a sad reminder that the Church sometimes has a tin ear with regard to the endless ways that the Holy Spirit continually operates within culture to help us recognise the sacred in the most unexpected places.

Labels: Christianity

Posted by B Feiler at 8:00 AM
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