War on drugs a Challenge to Catholic Faith

by Fr Shay Cullen

The Good Samaritan (after Delacroix), Vincent Van Gogh, 1890 

Rijksmuseum Kröller-Müller, Otterlo, Netherlands [Web Gallery of Art]

The Catholic Church- and that means not only the leadership but the People of God who believe in Jesus of Nazareth and his teaching on the sacredness of life, mercy, compassion and understanding- are challenged in this day by the war on drugs. God’s people in the Church needs to take a stand with and reach out to those in need of healing, care and help. Drug dependents are the victim attacked by bandits and was cared for by the Good Samaritan on the road to Jericho.

The Philippine Church and every one who considers him or herself a Catholic is challenged by the commitment and fiery words of President Duterte to continue his war-on-drugs and remove as many suspects as possible.

Few can doubt the dedication and commitment of President Duterte to rid the Philippines of the drug menace,. According to a United Nations report, the Philippines has one of the highest use of illegal drugs in Asia. The Philippine Dangerous Drugs Board estimates there are 1.8 million drug dependents in the Philippines.

The true Christian believers in Jesus of Nazareth and his teaching of justice, mercy, repentance and forgiveness with penance must think about the moral issues of this campaign and its methods of killing the suspects without evidence or trial is a big challenge to the Catholic Church. It is a call on the conscience and the integrity of the institutional leaders and the People of God everywhere and especially in Asia and the Philippines to take a stand on this.

Eighty percent of the population can be said to be Catholic and perhaps 60 percent know and believe in the commandment, “Thou shall not kill.” They believe they must act and speak to protect life, practice love and mercy, to heal the wounded, has compassion, justice and forgiveness. Do unto others as you would want them to do unto you is at the heart of the message. Jesus in Matthew 25 said we will be judged by the love and compassion we show to the hungry, thirsty, naked, homeless and those we visit in jail. What we do to them we do to Jesus of Nazareth.

Full post on Preda website.

Three boys in Aleppo, Syria [Wikipedia]

Welcome the Refugees

by Fr Shay Cullen

Two girls in Aleppo [Wikipedia]

The bombs keep falling and the barrels fall from the sky and burst with a massive boom and searing, burning flames consume the men, women and children. The chlorine chemical poison spreads among the ruins of Aleppo.

Aleppo, 2012 [Wikipedia]

The people are dead, others are suffering in agony, the children are screaming. The White Helmet Rescuers rush to dig out the bodies of the dead and the wounded. The paramedics rush to wash them down, give them oxygen masks to breath, if they have any. Others half-buried in the collapsed ruins of their houses, far from help, choke to death, scarred or maimed.

Syrian refugees, Greek-Macedonian border, August 2015 [Wikipedia]

They are starved, surrounded, killed one by one by the Assad snipers. The UN relief convoy of desperately needed food is bombed and burnt to ashes, seven more died. They flee the horror of violent death and hunger as the mayhem rained down on them. They are the Syrian refugees of war, and they flee the violence and indescribable cruelty. Who will give them welcome?

Syrian refugee camp, 80kms from Aleppo, hear Turkish border, 2012 [Wikipedia]

In other parts of Syria, the towns and villages are reduced to ruins as Isis moves closer to take over the villages and towns and impose their cruel regime of torture. Soon the chopping off of hands, arms and heads, the summary execution will begin. The rape and abuse of children, boys and girls, men and women follows. The sex slavery of thousands of people of this Isis regime is well known and the people flee. They are the refugees begging for help, asking for a place of refuge and safety, non-violence and peace.

Full post on Preda website.

The Spread of Child Trafficking

by Fr Shay Cullen

Unpleasant as it is we must not turn the page, look away and ignore this social evil that is destroying the lives of hundreds of thousands of children and families. The spread of child sexual abuse all over the world is the terrible crime that few want to acknowledge and fight.

The high number of trafficked children, abducted and sold into the sex trade in developed and developing countries is unbelievable but at least 2.5 million are thought to be victimized at any given time and more are added to that list daily. The fact that so little is spent and done to combat it is an indictment of the international community and national government officials who tolerate it. Officials actually promote and license the establishments that foster sex tourism and human trafficking.

Hundreds of thousands of sex tourists from developed countries come to Southeast Asia every year to engage in pernicious acts of child sexual abuse and sex trafficking. The Philippines is notorious for these crimes of human trafficking and child abuse and many customers are coming from international pedophile rings. They abuse the children, make videos and sell them online. The international authorities do little to intervene and local authorities seem to condone and promote the trade in young people in the sex industry.

The institutional Catholic Church fails to challenge sufficiently this pernicious evil that destroys the fabric of family life. People of all beliefs and principles, social justice advocates and those who value human rights and dignity ought to be outraged and take action wherever they can. They can campaign with groups online and challenge their politicians to act to protect children and curb foreign aid to governments that fail to implement international child protection standards.

Full post here.

Girls from Preda Girls’ Home

Vulnerable Children of the Philippines

by Fr Shay Cullen

The Methods of Martial Law

by Fr Shay Cullen

Bust of Ferdinand E. Marcos, Dictator of the Philippines

Built during the dictatorship, destroyed 2002 [Wikipedia]

The shocking death toll of Filipinos when Ferdinand Marcos declared martial law in 1972 sent shivers through Filipino society at the time. Such widespread killing of Filipinos by summary execution had never been seen since the Japanese invasion and their severe occupation. His regime was cruel marked by brutal killings, torture, the exile of opponents, imprisonment and the disappearing of thousands. The scale of the plunder under Marcos has never been fully tallied but it is said by government estimates to be in the billions of dollars salted away abroad.

Marcos had a systematic campaign to kill dissidents, oppositionists and anyone who opposed his iron fisted rule. The debate raging this past week was about the decision of President Rodrigo Duterte to allow the burial of the late dictator’s body in Libingan ng mga Bayani (Heroes’ Cemetery) in Manila this coming 18 September. The father of President Duterte served in the cabinet of Marcos and the President made an election campaign promise to allow the burial.

Libingan ng mga Bayani [Wikipedia]

The Supreme Court is holding hearings on petitions filed by victims of Martial Law to prevent the planned interment from happening, claiming that Marcos was a dictator of the worst kind and was not a hero. The body of the late strong man lies embalmed and preserved in a glass museum in his home on permanent display in Batac, Ilocos Norte.

Full post here.

Helping Drug Dependents

by Fr Shay Cullen

The Venerable Matt Talbot, Dublin [Wikipedia]

Matt Talbot (1856 – 1925) was born to a poor family in Dublin, Ireland. He became addicted to alcohol while still in his teens. ‘This website gives us an opportunity to gain a deeper insight into the life and times of the Venerable Matt Talbot. His is a story of triumph over addiction. It is a story of faith and of how the power of God’s grace can help us overcome the struggles and difficulties of life.’ [Editor]

Working for over twenty years helping drug dependents recover from abuse and addiction in a rehabilitation sanctuary for young people using chemical substances, I learned a few important things. First is that they are not criminals but in need of medical help and intervention. Drug abuse is a health issue. The most common answer given by the youth when asked why they began substance abuse is “To forget my problems.” But behind those answers, I learned about the causes and the nature of those problems they try to forget by substance use.

Substance abuse is trying to change bad feelings with chemicals. Millions of adults and young people are using alcohol, a legal drug to “forget their problems.” We need to be compassionate and caring of the substance user, not take a punitive approach of condemnation and punishment.

They are people suffering, hurting and with a troubled life. So the use and abuse of chemical substances is a form of self-medication for some. The use of substances ought not to be a criminal offense but a medical health issue. Those who use chemical substances need and deserve treatment, care and rehabilitation- not the death penalty.

Full post here.

The Death Penalty is Being Implemented

by Fr Shay Cullen

The Killing of Abel, Nicolas of Verdun, 1181

Augustinian Monastery, Klosterneuburg, Austria [Web Gallery of Art]

Speaker Pantaleon Alvarez and Capiz Congressman Fredenil Castro want to bring back the death penalty in the Philippines as a deterrent to crime. It can be said that the death penalty is already effectively and practically in force daily. As many as ten suspects are killed daily in the war on illegal drugs.

Some are killed in what is said to be police shoot-outs. Others are the work of vigilante death squads. They bind the hands and feet of the victims, gag them with tape and shoot them and leave them in a public place with a crude sign saying, ‘I am a pusher’ or a similar message.

Some of those killed are victims of mistaken identity; others are victims of criminals who kill and use the signboard to forestall any investigation. With the sign left on the body, it is presumed that the victim is a drug pusher. It is another case of a false accusation, a wrongful killing.

The suspects are lined up on lists prepared by the local barangay officials and given to the police. This denunciation of one’s neighbors by those elected to protect their rights is a contradiction. In the gated communities of the rich, the officials are not cooperating with the police demands for a list of suspects. Many end up dead and most of them are poor, small-time ‘suspected’ drug users. The big drug lords have yet to fall.

Full post here.

The Trafficking of Humans

by Fr Shay Cullen

[Photo: Wikipedia]

A few weeks ago, 69 Vietnamese victims of human trafficking were found in the Philippines. These migrants had been brought from Vietnam two at a time on a tourist visa by a syndicate and made to work for three years on low wages or none at all by human traffickers. They were then abandoned by their gang-masters, declared indigent and deported.

The Philippines is now a destination for low-paid or even slave labor as if it didn’t have enough itself. The Philippines is mostly a source of human trafficking victims both internal and international.

There is significant trafficking from the Philippines to South Korea using E6 visas and also to Japan as an entertainer. What happens to the thousands of young Filipino women there is anybody’s guess.

The Philippines is doing more to combat the trade in persons and has finally reached the US Tier 1 status and is among the top 39 countries whose government‘s fully meet the US minimum standards of the Trafficking Victims Protection Act. This has only been achieved this 2016 after many years on the Tier 2 Watchlist. At one stage a few years ago, the Philippines was on the verge of dropping to Tier 3, a very low standard of compliance indeed.

The Trafficking in Persons Report for 2016 issued for every country in the world by the US State Department states that being on Tier 1 does not mean there is no human trafficking, just that the government is meeting the minimum standards.

Full post here.

The Green Platform, the Positive Force for Change

by Fr Shay Cullen

Preda Girls Home

A friend of mine wrote a dedication to his latest publication, a book titled Living the Green Platform. In the dedication, he said, ‘Continue to find joy in your life and bring joy to others. You are truly Good News for the suffering poor.’

He is one of the most positive and affirming persons I have ever met. And it is from this belief in the goodness that is in everyone and the capacity of everyone to be positive, self- affirming and affirming of others that he has developed a basic philosophy of positive living which he names ‘The Green Platform.’

This is taking a dedicated, positive view of life even amid hardship, loss and setbacks in life as opposed to taking a negative self-defeating position. The contrast he makes is with the opposite, the negative ‘Red Platform’ where many people unfortunately stand. That is an attitude to life we are challenged to leave and transfer to the positive ‘Green Platform.’

Full article here.

The Age of Disbelief

by Fr Shay Cullen

The Good Samaritan, Théodule-Augustin Ribot, before 1870

Musée des Beaux-Arts, Pau, France [Web Gallery of Art]

It is truly an age of disbelief. Respect for the values of human life has plunged. People of Christian faith who declare belief in the teaching of Jesus of Nazareth that upholds the dignity and rights of the human person, stands with the poor and the excluded, shares with the refugees and the homeless, is at an all time low.

Faith in serving one’s suffering neighbor as a Good Samaritan, binding up the wounds of the stranger, reaching out to feed the hungry, working for peace and justice is lost in a world of materialism where the ideology is ‘greed is good’. Our prosperous world of money and power, wealth and possessions has created a generation of people that appears to be more interested in selfish satisfaction and glorification.

Much of the younger generation is absorbed with themselves, cut off in isolation by technology and gadgets and games from loving, serving human interaction. This is a lonely isolated generation. The selfie world is here with the Internet of things.

They seem to retreat into silence and inaction rather than take an open stand for the victims of human rights, child abuse and exploitation. Few march for peace and against racism and war. Where indeed are the cries of those who believe in the love of neighbor and the service to the oppressed and the exploited poor? They are drowned out by the noisy blare of mindless revelry and the drug- dependent pleasure seeking people.

Full post here.

Blessed Pier Giorgio Frassati (1901-1925)

Blessed Pier Giorgio Frassati is a great example of a highly-gifted and joy-filled young man engaged, as a person of faith, in the work of the Church, especially among the many poor people in his native city, Torino (Turin), Italy. His relics have been brought to Krakow, Poland, for World Youth Day 2016, 26-31 July.