PROSPECT HEIGHTS — Madeline Daley didn’t receive a tip when she recently delivered pizza to Pope Leo XIV on July 30. Still, the interaction and viral social media posts that followed have been priceless.
Daley, 22, of Cincinnati, is a graduate of Ohio University at Athens, where she earned an undergraduate degree in media production and a master’s in public administration.
But no, pizza delivery is not her side hustle. However, she does have a temporary gig creating social media content for the Archdiocese of Cincinnati. And, in January, she starts a full-time job handling social media and communications for a group of parishes.
But delivering a pepperoni pie to the pope — as seen on multiple traditional and new media platforms — was not meant to establish her as a social media “influencer.”
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Daley told The Tablet from Italy on Aug. 4 that she aimed to bring attention to the Church.
“I kind of thought, ‘Pizza to the pope? Like, that’s a silly idea. Some people will probably think that’s stupid.’” Daley recalled.
Instead, she has since been interviewed by the likes of CNN and NBC, and now, The Tablet.
“And,” Daley added, “how many millions of people were watching who needed to encounter the Catholic Church in a way that they’ve never seen before?”
But, Daley noted, the idea for the pizza run didn’t start with her.
Jayden Remias, also of Ohio and a fellow content creator, first had the idea to bring Pope Leo pizza from Aurelio’s Pizza, a Chicago-area-based restaurant chain.
Remias had learned that the new pope, an Illinois native, is a big fan of Aurelio’s, famous for its thin-crust pizza.
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Daley said she met Remias when he was her boss at the Catholic Youth Summer Camp at the Damascus Catholic Mission Campus, about 165 miles northeast of Columbus, Ohio.
Remias knew he couldn’t go to Rome this summer because his wife had just had a baby several months ago, but Daley shared that she was destined for the Eternal City to join in the Jubilee of Youth, July 28-Aug. 3.
And, being a content producer, she also planned to be at the Jubilee of Digital Missionaries and Catholic Influencers, which was being held a few days earlier.
Remais and his friend, Jake Ochave of Virginia, pledged to drive to Chicago and get the pizza. Remias next asked Daley if she would carry it to the Vatican.
“We planned to meet halfway between Columbus and Cincinnati to switch off the pizza,” Daley said.
They froze the pizza, which remained on dry ice for Daley’s flight to Rome. She traveled with her mother, and they put the frozen pizza in the freezer of an apartment they rented, but which wasn’t yet ready for them to occupy. The maids preparing the room possibly thought the pizza was left over from the previous occupants, and, somehow, it landed in the trash.
“The owner of the apartment was offering to buy us a new pizza,” Daley said. “But my mom was explaining, ‘That’s not okay, because this is a special pizza.’”
So, her mother prayed for the pizza’s return, undamaged.
“Literally 10 seconds later,” Daley said, “she gets the text with a picture of the pizza — the owner had found it — and he ran it right back up to our apartment.”
The pizza, which was double-wrapped and bagged, was still frozen, and the protective packaging had no punctures.
At that point, Daley said she felt that if the pizza had made it that far, God would see it through to the pope.
Next came the moment of truth on July 30, when Pope Leo arrived in the popemobile for the jubilee’s papal audience in St. Peter’s Square.
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Daley raised a sign that she made with the pizza restaurant’s logo. It read, “WE HAVE AURELIO’S PIZZA.”
“He saw the sign, and his face lit up,” Daley said. “Truly, he pointed to the box multiple times and kept telling the security guys, ‘Get the box, please! I want that pizza!’ ”
The protectors received the box and handed it to him.
“He was so elated when he got it,” Daley said.
Her video shows him glancing at the box, grinning, and then extending a “thumbs up” in her direction.
Daley said she didn’t know if the pie was screened by security, but she was excited to hear that the pope’s brother, John Prevost, told Chicago-area media that the pontiff did indeed eat the pizza.
Media outlets jumped on the story.
Daley, meanwhile, said she does not consider herself an “influencer,” even though she fits that description according to organizers of the Jubilee of Digital Media Missionaries and Catholic Influencers.
“They were saying that anyone who creates media for the Church is an influencer, because they’re influencing others for the Church,” Daley said. “But I am not an influencer.”
Instead, she calls herself a “Catholic videographer and photographer.”
“I do content creation,” she said, “but I’m not creating content for followers. I’m creating content for people who pay me.”
The pizza project, however, grew Daley’s faith.
She admitted to nervousness while entering the papal audience. She feared being left holding the pizza box and going unnoticed by Pope Leo.
But then she recalled how the pie was recovered unscathed from the trash. If God answered her mom’s prayer, why wouldn’t he answer Daley’s prayer?
“God,” Daley recited for The Tablet, “I’m trying to create this content to build your kingdom. Please help me achieve the end results, so that it’ll go viral and it will encounter people who have maybe never encountered the Catholic Church.”
“So, yeah,” she concluded, “my faith was extremely bolstered by the thought that God cares about the little silly things.
“Because he can work in such ginormous ways through that.”