By Hannah Brockhaus
Rome Newsroom, Mar 28, 2025 / 11:30 am
Archbishop Anthony Fisher of Sydney shared a remarkable story this week, attributing the miraculous survival of an Arizona toddler to the intercession of Cardinal George Pell.
According to The Australian newspaper, Fisher revealed at a book event on March 26 that an 18-month-old boy had been discharged from a hospital in Phoenix after going 52 minutes without breathing following a fall into a pool.
The boy, named Vincent, had “stopped breathing for 52 minutes,” Fisher explained during the Australian launch of a new biography on Cardinal Pell at Campion College near Parramatta.
“His parents prayed for the intercession of Cardinal Pell,” Fisher continued. “The boy survived and came off life support free of any damage to brain, lungs, or heart. He’s fine now, and his doctors are calling it a miracle.”
The boy’s uncle, who is a Catholic priest, reached out to Father Joseph Hamilton, Pell’s former secretary in Rome, to request prayers during the approximately 10-day hospitalization.
Hamilton revealed to The Australian that the family had met Cardinal Pell when he visited Phoenix in December 2021 to promote his three-volume “Prison Journal,” written during his 13-month imprisonment for historic child sexual abuse, a conviction that was later unanimously overturned by Australia’s highest court.
Pell had also conducted a White Mass for medical professionals in Phoenix during his visit.
The cardinal sadly passed away from cardiac arrest following a hip replacement surgery in Rome on Jan. 10, 2023.
