Irish missionary recalls effort to close naval base in Philippines over abuse

RTÉ News​

19 hours ago

One of the last remaining Irish missionaries has spoken of his work in the Philippines where he has been since the 1960s.
Fr Shay Cullen set up the Preda Foundation to rescue children from exploitation in the Philippines 50 years ago.
The four-time Nobel Peace Prize nominee features in the RTÉ documentary 'The Last Irish Missionaries', which charts the history of the Irish missionary movement.
At the peak of the Irish missionary movement, in the 1960s, over 6,000 Irish Catholic missionaries were dispersed to over 80 countries.
Now, with vocations evaporating and the last Irish missionaries ageing and dying, the movement is coming to a close.
Ahead of the broadcast of the documentary's first episode, Fr Cullen said his organisation in the Philippines is still working to help the victims of sexual exploitation, some as young as six years old.
He said they bring court cases against abusers, many of whom are relatives of the children.
"We were quite successful in healing the kids through our emotional release therapy, which is a very healing process," he said, adding "the kids become very self-confident, very outspoken".
The children, he said, "want to get justice".
"So they testify in the court and we win," he said.
Speaking on RTÉ's Morning Ireland, Fr Cullen said that the organisation secured 27 convictions last year, adding that up to July, the foundation reached "another 112 already".
He said there is another programme for boys, who are rescued from prison.
The missionary said the Juvenile Justice Welfare Act was passed after a ten-year campaign.
Fr Cullen explained that he also campaigned for a US naval base in the Philippines to be closed after he discovered a child sex syndicate linked to its Navy personnel.
"I exposed this in a newspaper at that time because we didn't have facilities and the city covered it all up," he said.
"So, I broke the news. It became an international story and that began an awareness," he added.
Fr Cullen said he was going to be deported and was threatened that the children's homes would be closed.
He said in the aftermath, he was threatened with deportation and the closure of his children's home.
The missionary said he subsequently suggested he military base be converted to an economic zone.
This started a campaign and eight years later the Philippine Senate closed the base, he said, calling it a "big success".
He said "all those women, 1,000 women in the sex industry" were all freed.
He added that such women "were in debt bondage" and "could never leave" until the campaign.
Broadcaster Bryan Dobson, who so-presents the documentary, said he was drawn to the project because like everybody in Ireland he grew up being aware of the Irish missionary story.
Speaking on the same programme, he said the missionaries are described as "the best of us".
He said Fr Cullen "really exemplifies part of this extraordinary Irish missionary story".
Mr Dobson said at its height, the missionary movement's "numbers were enormous", adding that "something like 6,000 or 7,000" people were involved.
He said "hundreds of young men and women every year" through the 1950s and the 1960s went into missionary orders.
Such people, he said, were then "dispatched to the Philippines or east Africa or wherever it might be, South America".
"So, I was fascinated to find out what motivated them, what drove them," he said.
"The sense of vocation they had, that's clearly the case," he added.