Parents of a toddler who miraculously survived near-drowning at their home in the US last month are convinced the late Cardinal George Pell was among the many who interceded for them.
Caitlin and Wesley Robinson, who live in Phoenix, Arizona, were preparing their family to visit relatives for lunch after Sunday Mass on 2 March when it was discovered their youngest child, then-14-month-old Vincent, was missing.
What happened next challenged their faith and unlocked an outpouring of support from the community and, the couple firmly believe, from heaven in the form of a miracle.
Little Vincent’s story was brought to light on 26 March when Archbishop Anthony Fisher OP mentioned he had received a report about it towards the end of a speech he gave at Campion College for the launch of a new biography of Cardinal Pell.
Fr Joseph Hamilton, the rector of Domus Australia in Rome and a former secretary of the cardinal, had passed the good news on to the archbishop.
Fr Hamilton had been contacted by the boy’s uncle, Fr Dan Connealy, with a request for prayers after the accident.
Speaking to The Catholic Weekly by phone, Vincent’s parents spoke of being overwhelmed by an outpouring of prayer, love and concern from their families, parish and wider community after Vincent’s father found him at the bottom of the family’s spa attached to their backyard swimming pool.
The toddler arrived at hospital without a pulse and after 52 minutes of resuscitation the little boy was placed on full life support. Given no encouragement from doctors, they tried to prepare themselves for the worst.
His uncle rushed to make the two-hour drive from his parish in Flagstaff, Arizona, and later realised he had forgotten to bring his book of funeral prayers. He wouldn’t need it.
Arriving at the hospital he joined the parents and a fast-growing army of supporters in storming heaven and the first glimmer of hope came late at night on Ash Wednesday.
“We knew they must have seen some progress when they told us going forward we could only have two guests in the room at a time, because during end-of-life situations they won’t limit guests,” Wesley said.
“On Thursday he had an MRI and that was shocking to us. We had expected brain, heart, lung issues but it came back completely fine.
“After that it was just slow progress and then things started to snowball in a good way.”
The family had met the cardinal in November 2021 when he visited the city on a speaking tour and was invited to Vincent’s grandparents’ home for dinner.
“That was an awesome opportunity and so from the beginning after the accident we were praying for the intercession of Cardinal Pell, the Ulma family from Poland who are all beatified, and the saints we named our children after, including the children we’ve miscarried,” said Caitlin, who is now expecting her ninth child.
“We prayed to the saints who had a feast day each day, then we added Blessed Conchita, a Mexican mother of nine whose youngest son died of drowning. People began shipping across relics of saints, we had like a whole museum of faith.”
On Ash Wednesday a novena was begun asking the intercession of Blessed Fr Michael McGiveny, the 18th century founder of the Knights of Columbus.
Discharged on the ninth day, 13 March, with a clean bill of health, today Vincent is just the same lively child as before the accident, just a month older.
Doctors say it’s “very hard to explain” his complete recovery within two weeks but his elated parents have no problem because they asked for it in prayer and were stunned to see how God answered.
“Over a period of five or six days it was the lowest, darkest, toughest point in our life. Neither of us had any kind of acute trauma like this before, and by the time it got to that Saturday and Sunday, while Vincent wasn’t completely in the clear I’ve never felt that happy in my life,” said Wesley.
“We know a lot of friends have asked for miracles and they haven’t come. For some reason God decided it wasn’t Vincent’s time, and we may never know fully why, but now I’m kind of excited to see what happens next as we’ve already begun to see some of the fruit.
“We do feel like the miracle happened for a reason, we want to spread our story and do good and strengthen everyone’s faith.”
“We both are different people than we were a month ago,” Caitlin agreed.
“We always knew intellectually that prayer is real and the saints are in heaven and all these things we are taught and you teach your children, but to have experienced this, it’s so obvious the Church Triumphant is united to get the Church Militant to heaven—they are actually very present in our lives.
“We could ignore it and think we know better, but we can’t unsee what we’ve seen.
“We get such a kick of out sharing, in particular, our Cardinal Pell story because people should be asking for his intercession.
“If that’s the very smallest thing that comes from this, that people can know the saints in heaven and the people we believe are in heaven, really are pulling for us.
“Because there’s just no way our son survived those first three days without the help of everybody we were asking for prayer.
“And maybe one of the fruits of this will be the strengthening of ordinary marriages and families and reminding people that the domestic church, our homes, is where we start to preach the Gospel.
“I hope that’s where the Lord works the most, that my children have seen a miracle and will now hold that with them in some way as they grow up.”
Speaking at the launch of George Cardinal Pell: Pax Invictis, Archbishop Fisher said for the cardinal, faith, hope, and love had not been abstract theological virtues but concrete realities in the “man and his actions.”
Despite the public infamy stirred up by some in the media, politics, and the law, and the cardinal’s wrongful conviction and imprisonment for over 400 days, he resisted “every human impulse to self-pity and bitterness,” the archbishop added.
“He actually grew in grace and mercy and prayer for the real victims of abuse, and even for his persecutors.”
