Shay Cullen, SSCME (born 27 March 1943) is an

Irish Catholic Irish Catholics () are an ethnoreligious group native to Ireland, defined by their adherence to Catholic Christianity and their shared Irish ethnic, linguistic, and cultural heritage.The term distinguishes Catholics of Irish descent, particul ...

missionary priest and the founder of the PREDA Foundation. He is a member of the Columbans, an Irish order founded in honour of and named after Saint

Columbanus Saint Columbanus (; 543 – 23 November 615) was an Irish missionary notable for founding a number of monasteries after 590 in the Frankish and Lombard kingdoms, most notably Luxeuil Abbey in present-day France and Bobbio Abbey in presen ...

. He was educated near his home at Harold's Boys by the Presentation Brothers in

Glasthule Glasthule ( ; ) is a suburb of Dublin, Republic of Ireland, Ireland. It is along County Dublin, County Dublin’s south coast, between Dún Laoghaire, Sandycove, Glenageary and Dalkey. Amenities Sandycove and Glasthule are served by a number ...

, and CBC Monkstown Park. He helped found PREDA in 1974 along with Alex Corpus Hermoso and Merly Ramirez. This small non-profit organisation has a number of purposes, including the promotion and protection of the human rights of the Filipino people, especially women and children. During the Ferdinand Marcos dictatorship, activists and dissidents were arrested and jailed. Cullen was one of three priests arrested on September 23, 1972, upon the declaration of martial law in the Philippines. The Preda Foundation and Cullen were awarded the Human Rights Award from the City of Weimar in 2000 and received the '' Prix Caritas'' from

Caritas Switzerland Caritas Switzerland (German: , French: , Italian: , Romansh language, Romansh: ) is a Swiss Catholic Church, Catholic not-for-profit organisation. Its mission is to prevent, combat and alleviate poverty. It is a member of both Caritas Europa and ...

in 2003. PREDA cooperates closely with international legal tribunals,

Interpol The International Criminal Police Organization – INTERPOL (abbreviated as ICPO–INTERPOL), commonly known as Interpol ( , ; stylized in allcaps), is an international organization that facilitates worldwide police cooperation and crime cont ...

and the

UN Commission on Human Rights The United Nations Commission on Human Rights (UNCHR) was a functional commission within the overall framework of the United Nations from 1946 until it was replaced by the United Nations Human Rights Council in 2006. It was a subsidiary body of th ...

. In 2017, Cullen was awarded with the Martin Buber Plaque at the Euriade, the international festival for dialogue.

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{{DEFAULTSORT:Cullen, Shay Living people 1943 births 20th-century Irish Roman Catholic priests Missionary Society of St. Columban People educated at C.B.C. Monkstown 21st-century Filipino Roman Catholic priests