01-23-2021, 04:40 PM
EDITOR'S PREFACE
Father Gerald Culleton lost his life in an automobile accident, February "19, 1950. He was on his way to say Sunday Mass in his mission church when his car struck a truck in the thick fog. This was at the place called Traver on U. S. Highway 99. He is buried in Holy Cross Cemetery, Fresno, California.
The manuscript for this book was pretty well completed when he died. The index and biblography only were missing. These and two quotations have been added by the editor; also a couple of prophecies since repudiated by Church authority have been emitted, as has a large section from the introduction. This was necessary to keep the size and price down.
It is most important that readers understand that inclusion of any private prophecy in this book does not in any way indicate that it is approved by the Church or even by the author of this work. This is merely an historical presentation cf oracles that at the moment are read by good Christians.
The author, as a rule, avoids expressing his own views. Now that he has gone to his reward we may well ask just what were those views. Did he expect Antichrist in the 1950's? So far as we can learn he held no definite personal views as to the time of Antichrist's appearance. He did believe, however, that private prophets expected a very great anti-Christian movement (or an antichrist more fierce than any yet encountered) in this present decade. This person or movement would set out to conquer the world and would be at first very successful. The attempt would be defeated just when it would seem about to overcome the last remnant of opposition. As is natural he felt that if these prophets arc true, Communism is this anti-Christian force.
As to the object whicl1 would defeat this force he was not at all sure. Would it be a person and thing still more evil, namely the Antichrist par excellence, or a Christian organization under a personage often called in prophecy the Great Monarch, or a more apparent miracle (such as three days darkness), or something that would typify the Second Coming of Christ? He found the prophets too diversified to find an answer to this question. The diversity need not mean contradiction, for each prophet may speak of different times or different phases of the same time.
Some private prophets give very precise dates. This is one of the simplest ways of eliminating a prophecy from the realm of truth. If the date arrives and the words are not fulfilled then evidently God has not spoken, or if he has, he meant one of many antichrists and the prophet thought he meant the Antichrist.
The author did not hope to be able to make a collection of prophecies all of which would be true. All he could do was bring together all which at the moment seemed likely to be trustworthy. Just as Satan has a hand in false religions, chiefly because they tend to make religion itself ridiculous, so also does he take a hand in false prophecy, again in an effort to make all prophecy ridiculous. Nevertheless, just as the true religion shall survive and prove itself, so also shall those prophecies that are true survive and prove themselves. If one or other prophecy recorded in this book be repudiated, let it be understood that others still stand.
Father Culleton wrote his first book THE PROPHETS AND OUR TIMES at the suggestion of Monsignor (later Bishop) Philip G. Scher, who was the pastor when he was an assistant at Monterey. The book itself was written somewhat later when father was pastor at Taft, California (19341944). It was widely read having gone through three editions totaling 12,500 copies. Most purchasers who wrote the author complained that so many had borrowed their copies that the book was literally read to pieces.
Father was born at Fresno, California, September 10, 1902 of Irish immigrant parentage: Patrick J. Culleton, of Coolgraney, Co. Kilkenny and Mary J. McCrory of Agliagallon, Co. Antrim. He was one of four children. After the grammar and high grades at the local parish school, he went to Santa Clara College. Having decided to be a diocesan priest, he transferred to St. Patrick's Seminary, Menlo Park, California and three years later went to the American College in Rome, where he was ordained March 24, 1928. He has a brother a priest and a sister and aunt in the convent.
After assistancies at Hanford, Monterey, Salinas, and San Luis Obispo, he became pastor of Taft and then of Wasco. He contracted undulant fever in the latter place and was sent to the cooler climate of Soledad, where he was Chaplain at the Medium Security Prison. It was while he was in Wasco and Soledad that he collected and arranged the material for this book. The typing was done by one of the Soledad prisoners.
His health was restored somewhat at Soledad. He was then given a district in the San Joaquin Valley to develop into a parish. This was July 29, 1949. By February 20, 1950, he had built a rectory and otherwise developed the place to the point where on that day Bishop Aloysius J. Willinger established the parish of the Sacred Heart, Exeter, with Father Culleton as its first pastor.
Father had not been well for some weeks before his death, which he expected without knowing why, and which he asked ethers to help him prepare for. He had special devotion to the Holy Ghost, Saints Michael, Gabriel of our Sorrowful Mother, Gemma Galgani, and Maria Georetti, and great faith in relics and sacramentals. He always gave ready submission to the desires of his superiors.
The manuscript for this book passed by will to Father's bishop, who gave it to us with permission to print and distribute it.