Pope Benedict was opposed to Bob Dylan appearing at a youth event with the late Pope John Paul in 1997 because he considered the pop star the wrong kind of "prophet," Benedict writes in a new book issued on Thursday.Benedict, who was Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger at the time of the concert in Bologna, Italy, makes the disclosure in a new book of memoirs about his predecessor, who died in 2005.
"There was reason to be skeptical, -- I was, and in a certain sense I still am, -- to doubt if it was really right to let these types of prophets intervene," Benedict writes, only mentioning Dylan among the stars who appeared.
At the 1997 concert, Dylan, the anti-conformist troubadour of the 1960s and one of the 20th century's greatest influences on popular music, sang three songs before the Pope as part of a concert that included a number of other, mostly Italian artists.
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