Canadian singer Celine Dion has paid an emotional tribute to late Pope John Paul II by recalling a spiritual experience with the Holy Father that changed her life.

The "My heart will go on" singer believes her religious faith began in 1984 when she was just 16 years old, during a performance for the Pope, Internet portal femalefirst reported.

She ended her song "A dove" by releasing hundreds of doves, and was amazed when a single bird perched on the Pope's shoulder and refused to leave him.

A decade later in 1994, she had the opportunity to thank the leader of the Catholic Church for the religious moment, when he invited Dion, her husband Rene Angelil and her mother Therese, to a private audience at the Vatican in Rome.

She said, "It was a moment, like time stopped. The emotion was bigger than everything. You sensed this incredible force. It was definitely one of the strongest moments in my life, like being in contact with heaven."