Patti Smith met Pope Leo XIV on Friday at the Vatican, with the singer and the pontiff, two Chicago natives, sitting down for a 40-minute conversation
Just days after Smith performed in Rome, she visited the pope in a meeting arranged by Rev. Antonio Spadaro, undersecretary in the Vatican’s culture ministry and a friend of Smith’s.
“This is a moment that shall forever produce a smile,” Smith wrote on Instagram of the encounter.
Upon first meeting, Smith greeted Pope Leo XIV with “Hi, hi,” uttered in the same way she said it on her 1979 song “Wave,” a track that imagines a conversation with Pope John Paul I, who died after a 33-day papacy in 1978. Pope Leo XIV was familiar with “Wave” and immediately recognized the reference. “That was marvelous,” he told Smith (via The Associated Press).
“When that door opened, something happened… a spark was lit—one that came with a few lighthearted moments, but also with a profound sense of emotion and of a shared mission in this challenging world,” Spadaro wrote of the meeting on Instagram.
“Two Americans. Two Chicagoans. Two remarkable figures whose voices speak hope to a divided world: the ‘priestess of rock,’ as [Smith] is often called, and the Holy Father, [Pope Leo XIV]. It was a long audience that 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.”
Although not a Catholic, Smith said she was drawn to Pope Leo XIV for his “gentle, open, and steadfast sense of humanity.” In May, she performed at the inauguration of the Holy See’s pavilion at the Venice Biennale contemporary art fair, which celebrated the one-year anniversary of the Pope’s election.
Smith previously met Leo’s predecessor Pope Francis in 2013 and sang for him for the following year. When Pope Francis died in 2025, Smith penned a poem about him.
