PHILIPPINES
Catholic Philly
BY DENNIS SADOWSKI
Catholic News Service
WASHINGTON (CNS) — Arriving in the Philippines from Ireland in 1969 as a young missionary priest, Columban Father Shay Cullen hardly expected he’d end up fighting a burgeoning sex industry.
More than 45 years later, despite death threats and confrontations with uncooperative authorities, Father Cullen, 72, continues to patrols bars and hotels to free kids from an unimaginably dark world where the value of human life is solely measured by how much many customers a child can see in one night.
Through a foundation which he established in 1974 in the western coastal city of Olongapo, Father Shay has helped thousands of young people escape slavelike conditions and rediscover their dignity.
“We are successful in rescuing and saving these children and giving them a new life, a therapeutic community and a sense of new life and dignity so life can return to these unfortunate exploited young people,” Father Cullen told Catholic News Service.
The People’s Recovery Empowerment and Development Assistance Foundation, known as PREDA, provides runaway, abandoned and trafficked children a safe space where they can confront their life of abuse or slavery. Father Cullen claims a success rate of more than 97 percent with few young people unable to settle into a stable life.
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