The ever-mutating Roman Catholicism effected another assimilation recently when Pope John Paul II and his retinue of cardinals and bishops attended a church-sponsored concert which featured the surrealistic folk-rock icon Bob Dylan. This "surprising-to-the-church" concert was occasioned by the 23rd World Eucharistic Congress held in the northern Italian city of Bologna. When the Pope's actions were questioned, the spokesman for the Eucharistic Congress, Monsignor Domenico Sigalinini, stated, "The pope's idea is to get closer to young people through pop music, which unfortunately for many years has been viewed with suspicion and indifference by the church." Bob Dylan's presence, along with Pope John Paul's, drew a crowd of about 300,000 to the Saturday evening concert. Although attendance to the concert was free, Dylan did receive some $350,000 for his part in the rock concert, which was underwritten by Alitalia, the Italian airline.
During the press conference held several days before the concert, Monsignor Sigalinini stated, "The church has to come to terms with the language of young people. Let's not forget that some rock music has managed to change political choices and modify the outlook of society." He prefaced his remarks by asking "forgiveness" for the church's relatively late attention to rock music. When the 56-year-old singer/song-writer was interviewed by the Italian press as to why he had agreed to perform at the church-sponsored event, Dylan simply responded, "Why Not?"
What has prompted Pope John Paul's open acceptability of the surrealistic, rock music of Bob Dylan? What Monsignor Sigalinini stated about rock music is certainly a commentary on the life and music writings of Dylan, for no singer (apart from the Beatles) has changed political choices and modified "the outlook of society" as he has. Before this question is to be answered, let us note a brief background of this icon of rock.
Bob Dylan was born in 1941 in the state of Minnesota with the name Robert Allen Zimmerman. He legally changed his name in August 1962, taking on the first name of Dylan Thomas for his last name. Of all the personality icons in rock music history Bob Dylan has been the most diversified in musical style, constantly changing, deliberately elusive, and often prophetic of the philosophical swings of his generation, particularly during the 1960's through the early 1980's. He was deified by his contemporary with whole schools of musicians taking up his ideas. His lyrics were so universally known that Jimmy Carter quoted several Dylan lines in his presidential inaugural speech. Dylan was the one who invented the so-called "singer/songwriter genre." He is known for his nasal, spontaneous vocal style with an "electric band." He was the one who reconnected rock and country and became the forerunner of country rock music which became popular in the 1970's. He also was the man who met the Beatles at Kennedy Airport and introduced them to marijuana. His protesting, surrealistic, existential, nihilistic music literally dominated the philosophical scene of America during the 1960's, one of the worst eras in our country's history. On July 29, 1966, Dylan was in a severe motorcycle accident while riding near his Woodstock, New York, home. With several broken neck vertebrae, a concussion and lacerations of the face and scalp, he was in critical condition for several weeks. Then followed the after-effects which included amnesia and a mild paralysis; he spent nine months in seclusion. Finally in 1968 he made his public re-entry still producing a philosophical mutation among the youth with his music.
But in 1979 Bob Dylan announced he had become a born-again Christian. Debby Boone (Pat Boone's daughter), and several others, introduced him to evangelical teachings. Out of this so-called conversion his revolutionary album Slow Train Coming was produced which netted him his first Grammy. But by 1982 his "born-again" title was waning in his music, and the latter part of the 1980's gave evidence of his renouncement of Christianity and a returning to his liberal Jewish roots. Today, he is back into his pied piper surrealism of music.
It is somewhat surprising that the so-called "conservative" Pope of Romanism has cast in his identification with a man whose music has ridiculed and philosophically mocked God and His blessed Son, the Lord Jesus Christ. Dylan was one of the earliest ones in the 1960's who openly attacked the biblical understanding of God in his song, "The Tombstone Blues":
Well, John the Baptist after torturing a thief,
Looks up at his hero the Commander-in-Chief,
Saying tell me great hero but please make it brief,
Is there a hole for me to get sick in?
The Commander-in-Chief answers him while chasing a fly,
Saying death to all those who would whimper and cry,
And dropping a barbell he points to the sky,
Saying the sun's not yellow, it's chicken.
The analogy is obvious: The Commander-in-Chief is God the Father who spends His time running around chasing a fly (the devil is the fly, and lord of the flies), and the concluding words speaks of the "sun" or Jesus Christ the Son, being chicken.
Dylan's musical style during his prime was a combination of the "dispossessed whites" and the black blues traditions. These two streams were brought together in his writings as he dealt with oppression, violence and tragedy which he viewed as part of the desolation of America. His style of music was called "folk-rock," which was first applied to the music of Simon and Garfunkel. Dylan's songs basically controlled the generation of the early 1960's, and joined forces with the Beatles in the latter part of the 1960's. He looked for the utopia to come through drugs and the revolution philosophy. President Bill Clinton's administration is of that era and ideology. One thing that must be said of Dylan's music: he transcended the trivia of everyday life and penetrated the moral and philosophical questions of his generation's existence, finally leading to nihilism. The permeating philosophical stream is surrealism and existentialism with the absence of absolutes and morals. His "born again" period of life was truly a mixture of the surrealism and evangelicalism. But within a few years he renounced this period of his mutating life and entered back into being the "conscience" of the rock culture.
But now we see the seventy-seven year old pontiff of Romanism, Pope John Paul II leaning towards the antithesis of Christ to bridge what he sees to be a gap between the Church and the youth. Rock, sex, and drugs have been the unholy god-like trinity of the generations living in the past forty years. The Pope believes there can be a divine union to take place between Christ and the Devil to bring a "lost" generation into the Mother Church. (But this is nothing new for Romanism.) For the professing "vicar" of Christ to join with the "vicar" of Satan in an "eucharistic congress" is truly a "divine comedy" that is far more absurd than Dante's writing of the same. But, no doubt, the reasoning may be "if the Charismatics and the Evangelical churches can use rock music, so can we." Yet, the Pope has chosen for his "coming-out-of-the-closet" icon with "rock" the worst of the icons in Bob Dylan.
While Heaven grieves over what has happened on earth in the name of Christianity, Hell laughs as Romanism marches on in its assimilation with the present age. The Antichrist is coming and religion is helping to pave the way with its many endorsements of his system.
What is the "comedy" of it all? Yea, the sad comedy? Thousands over the centuries have desired audience with the Pope to be blessed by him. Yet, now, the Pope is desiring audience with the guru of surrealism, Bob Dylan, to be blessed by him.