Chicago artist creates Marian icon for Pope Leo XIV, who will keep the image in his bedroom

A Chicago iconographer had just one week to create an icon of Our Lady of Good Counsel for Pope Leo XIV. The finished work made its way to the Vatican, where the Holy Father received it during a private audience and plans to keep it close and use in his personal prayer.

Joseph Malham is a Chicago-based iconographer who was commissioned to do the piece by Michael Airdo, an attorney from Chicago who had a planned trip to visit the pope and wanted to give him a special gift. Given the Holy Father’s Augustinian roots, Airdo decided to give him an image of Our Lady of Good Counsel, which holds a special place in the Augustinian tradition.

The devotion is rooted in a centuries-old image of the Virgin Mary and the Christ Child venerated at the Basilica Sanctuary of Our Mother of Good Counsel in Genazzano, Italy, entrusted to the Augustinians. The order has promoted devotion to Mary under this title for centuries.

After Pope Leo was elected, he traveled to Genazzano — which is about 40 miles southeast of Rome — to pray before the image located in the basilica.

Airdo sent Malham an email inquiring if the icon could be completed, but there was a catch — he only had one week to do…