ROME — Rock legend Patti Smith was giddy and almost at a loss for words when she met Friday with Pope Leo XIV.
“Hi,” she said softly as she sat down across from Leo at his desk in the Apostolic Palace.
Wearing a crucifix necklace and hair in her trademark braids, Smith has become an increasingly visible presence at the Vatican thanks to her friendship with the Rev. Antonio Spadaro, undersecretary in the Vatican’s culture ministry.
She has said that while she is not Catholic, she was drawn in particular to Pope Francis and his “gentle, open, and steadfast sense of humanity.”
Earlier this year, Smith performed during the inauguration of the Holy See’s pavilion at the Venice Biennale contemporary art fair. The occasion, May 8, was the anniversary of Leo’s election.
Spadaro, who joined Smith at Friday’s audience, said the encounter between the two Chicago natives was long. In a text message, he said it “felt more like a conversation between two people discovering they were old friends, sharing memories woven from words and music, dreams, visions, and hopes - both from yesterday and for today.”
Smith met Francis in 2013 and sang for him in 2014. When he died, on April 21, 2025, she wrote a poem on social media, comparing Francis to a dandelion, “humble yet strong.”
“Nature and poetry and the suffering shall miss their champion,” she wrote.
It was Leo’s second encounter with a music legend this week. On Wednesday, Leo attended a concert in his honor by tenor Andrea Bocelli.
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