Former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani may have experienced what one health professional called a “miracle.”
Hospitalized and in critical condition with a respiratory illness on Sunday, the unresponsive Giuliani received anointing oil from a priest.
Then, on Monday, the former mayor awakened and began breathing on his own.
“He is a fighter,” primary care doctor Maria Ryan said in a clip from an interview with Fox News, posted to the social media platform X.
“The way he was yesterday, in such critical condition, he did have a priest anoint him. And all the prayers from around the world, it’s like a miracle. This guy’s got nine lives. Today, he’s doing much better.”
Some good news for Rudy Giuliani … he’s back to breathing on his own after being on a ventilator.
🎥 Fox News pic.twitter.com/gAr8GwpVO7
— TMZ (@TMZ) May 5, 2026
Meanwhile, friends and associates of Giuliani also shared the encouraging update.
“He’s talking, he’s alert. To me, that’s great news,” grocery-chain billionaire and radio talk show host John Catsimatidis told reporters, per the New York Post.
Ted Goodman, Giuliani’s spokesman, echoed Dr. Ryan’s comments about the former mayor’s resilience.
“Mayor Giuliani is the ultimate fighter — as he has demonstrated throughout his life — and he is winning this battle,” Goodman said.
The spokesman also confirmed that Giuliani was hospitalized for pneumonia, and that the illness is connected to the greatest trial of the former mayor’s life: the terror attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.
“On September 11th, Mayor Giuliani ran toward the towers to help those in need, which led to a restrictive airway disease diagnosis,” Goodman explained. “This disease adds complications to any emerging respiratory issue, and the virus quickly overwhelmed his body, requiring mechanical ventilation to maintain his blood pressure.”
Of course, Americans under the age of 30 undoubtedly first recognize Giuliani as an ally of President Donald Trump. Indeed, the former mayor’s efforts to expose 2020 election-related irregularities made him one of many targets of anti-Trump lawfare.
Nonetheless, older Americans will never forget Giuliani’s leadership during and after those terror attacks.
“History is going to judge [Giuliani] as the greatest mayor of New York City ever,” journalist and radio host Dominic Carter told reporters.
With that in mind, did Giuliani experience a miracle? Did God grant him more time with friends and loved ones?
In short, we cannot know for certain. We do know, however, that the answer depends on the preconceptions we bring to the question.
“[M]odern people have an almost aesthetic dislike of miracles,” legendary Christian author C.S. Lewis once wrote. “Admitting that God can, they doubt if He would. To violate the laws He Himself has imposed on His creation seems to them arbitrary, clumsy, a theatrical device only fit to impress savages—a solecism against the grammar of the universe.”
In other words, in a secular world that worships science, even many believers struggle to accept the possibility of miracles.
On the other hand, we encounter stories of miracles everywhere we look.
Notorious Hollywood gossip-monger and professed atheist Perez Hilton, for instance, recently described a dangerous illness and a lengthy hospital stay during which God revealed Himself. Now, Hilton reads the Bible and talks about God on his YouTube channel.
In short, evidence abounds. Nothing but the relative openness of our own hearts prevents us from seeing God’s activity in the world.
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