Why Movie Star Martin Thinks a Humble Priest is a Real Superhero
Published in Sunday Mail
(U.K. Publications)
March 13, 2000
AMONG people scratching for a pathetic living on a rubbish dump, movie star
Martin Sheen stands solidly by his own personal hero.
He's Father Shay Cullen, who is to be nominated by Scots MP Nigel Griffiths for
a Nobel Prize for his crusade to save the world's poorest children from
organized sex abuse. This is their story.
A MIDDLE-AGED man walks streets where neon lights and thumping music advertise hundreds of girlie bars and child-sex brothels.
Sweat streaks Shay Cullen's forehead as he moves through crowds of drunken,
leering men, until he reaches a murky back street of Olongapo, international sex
capital of the Philippines.
Ahead, a filipino pimp has something to sell. They barter and argue, and for the
equivalent of just L20, deal is struck.
Out of the darkness a little girl, clutching a doll. She is no more than eight
years old, frightened and crying.
Cullen grabs her by the arm and drags her with, him into the night.
The pimp warns his customer: "Don't pay her too much. You'll spoil her!"
Cullen answers:."Don't worry, all she'll get is a hamburger."
Hours later, in his white robes, Father Shay Cullen raises his hands and asks
his congregation at St. Joseph's to bless themselves: "In the Name of the Father
and of the Son and of them Holy Spirit."
He tells them: "Christ said we must suffer little children to come unto us. That
is what we are doing here today."
The little girl he saved is now safe, receiving medical and psychological
attention from his team in their children's refuge.
This is the astonishing man Hollywood superstar Martin Sheen has dedicated his
every spare moment to, supporting his international crusade against child sex
abuse and prostitution.
Now Sheen has spoken for the first time about his involvement with Father Shay
and his dream to play his hero in a movie.
And last night, Scots MP Nigel Griffiths announced he is to lead a motion to
have the priest nominated for a Nobel Prize for saving the lives of thousands of
children, putting dozens of evil paedophiles behind bars, and changing child sex
laws across the world.
Sheen first witnessed the children's plight when he travelled to the
Philippines to film the Vietnam movie, Apocalypse Now in 1979.
He was so moved by the exploitation of poor women and children by sex tourists
from around the world that he has been compelled to return time and time again.
Sheen, who is about to burst on to our TV screens in the latest blockbuster, The
West Wing, which lays bare the inner workings of the White House, said: "Thank
God for Father Shay. He truly is a hero. "
I would be honoured to portray him in a movie, if only the film industry had the
courage to allow it."
Describing their first meeting, he said: "I couldn't believe my eyes when I saw
what was happening to those poor kids, treated like contraband, sexually abused
and simply thrown away."
When Mount Pinatubo erupted in 1991, covering Shay's orphanage with black ash,
the star got down on his hands and knees to help dig the building free.
Two years ago, he paid for shelters and washing facilities for 5000 families
living on a rubbish dump.
Sheen said he'd be willing to support Nigel Griffiths' Nobel nomination move.
He added: "I'm delighted that the MP is taking this step, I'd be happy to speak
to the British Parliament to explain just how important Father Shay's work is. "
There is no one more deserving of a Nobel Prize."
MP Nigel has worked closely with Father Shay to broker laws so that British
child sex monsters can be prosecuted for abusing children abroad.
He said: "Father Shay is as much a visionary as David Livingstone. "
He's just tackling a different kind of slavery."
The MP added: "Despite the death threats he suffers on a daily basis, despite
the intolerable pressures to stop his work, Father Shay has a determination to
keep fighting for children sold into sex slavery.
"He has brought the world face to face with the atrocities, changed the minds
of governments to bring in new laws. "
I will be calling on my colleagues at Westminster to back me in having him
nominated for a Nobel Prize. He deserves no less."
Dublin-born Father Shay Cullen, 56, has helped jail many of the world's most
evil paedophiles, and gave information to help imprison Brits Brett Tyler and
Timothy Morss, for life.
The perverts fled to the Philippines after the sickening murder of the nine-year
old London schoolboy Daniel Handley six years ago. They posed as Priests to lure
Filipino slum children into their grasp.
The priest blames the development of the U.S. Navy base at Subic Bay for many of
the problems.
He said: "A profitable sex industry was developed to cater for servicemen. They
brought in so much money, they were seen as untouchables, no matter what crimes
they committed against women and children."
The navy withdrew seven years ago, but Shay followed them and took on the might
of the US government to secure four million dollars for the forgotten children
left behind in poverty.
Shay dices with death virtually every day, going undercover, posing as a sex
tourist to snatch Filipino children to safety.
It is belived that around a million are living on the streets, many of them used
as prostitutes. Simply seen as vermin by crooked authorities, in the past, many
were gunned down by death squads.
Exposing pimps and their lucrative brothels makes the priest a constant
target for the rogue cops and crooked politicians making fortunes from the sex
industry.
But brave Shay dismisses these dangers, saying' "I know there's a price on my
head and hitmen on my trail. They might kill me, but they won't stop me. "
"Jesus suffered false charges all through his life. He did not bow down, and I
will not bow down."
Marion Scott