Prophecies In Rome In 1975 Saw Collapse Of Buildings And Societal 'Meltdown'

By Michael H. Brown

The year was 1975. In Rome, there was the first International Catholic Charismatic Conference. At this meeting of about 10,000 pilgrims from around the world -- during which Pope Paul VI gave his blessing -- there was a great outpouring of the Spirit. It was most noticeable in a song, "Jesus is Lord," that erupted from the participants at St. Peter's Basilica -- so loud it drowned out the Sistine Choir (which soon joined in). Everyone was singing in his own language. And then there was prophecy.

"It just could not be contained," recalled one participant named Ann Shields. "It was totally awesome. You know, that's a kid's term today, 'awesome,' but it was awesome. 

"I was on my knees, and it's very hard to get on your knees when you're squashed together like that. At the same time, after Communion, there was a new gift being used in St. Peter's -- at least new in form -- and that was a prophetic gift. There were four or five prophecies, one right after the other, after Communion from the high altar at St. Peter's.

"And all these prophecies dealt with a time of darkness coming," said Shields, "a time when supports that you depend on would no longer be there, things you've depended on, resources, buildings, people, and finances, all that kind of thing, will be taken from you. And then a time of evangelism will follow such as the world has never seen. That's the heart of those prophecies."

One participant quoted the Lord as saying, "Things that have been supports to My people will no longer be there. Buildings that are now standing will not be standing" -- this two years after completion of the World Trade Center.

Was it related? Was it related to the "end times"? Or the Second Coming?

Shields wasn't sure. She wasn't sure of the definition for "end times." She spoke instead of the "end of an age." It seemed to Shields (with whom we spoke in the 1990s during research for a book called The Trumpet of Gabriel) that God was "giving us signs of the collapse of things we've depended upon: social structures, family." One of the 1975 prophets quoted the Lord as saying that it was time to prepare, that a time of tribulation was coming -- what Shields interpreted as a purification for the way mankind had conducted itself since the Second World War  -- "But know that when you have only Me, you will have everything," they felt the Lord was saying.

Shields felt society was moving into a "post-Christian" time in its societal values, education, and legal systems -- and that God was "pouring out His Holy Spirit as at the beginning of the Church to get the Church out of pagan times."

The time of trials would be followed by a "time of glory" for the Church. "I will prepare you for a time of evangelism that the world has never seen," the Lord was quoted as telling the prophets at St. Peter's -- the throng of 10,000 who remind us of the Upper Room and who indeed were meeting on Pentecost weekend.

"I don't know what God is going to do, but it seems to me that all around us God is giving us signs of the collapse of things we've depended upon: social structures, family, and all those kinds of things," Shields told us. "We've taken so many things for granted for so long. And we've not acknowledged the blessings of God."