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For 36 years, Fr. Shay Cullen and his PREDA Foundation have been rescuing and freeing children from the slavery of drugs, sexual exploitation and petty crime which brought many young boys to jail. His passion to free young people is inspired by the Gospel where Jesus says that He has come to save the oppressed and captives.
PREDA has been rescuing hundreds of sexually-abused children from the grip of traffickers, pimps, nightclub operators and home harassers and giving them a new life. More difficult, though, is to pursue justice on behalf of the victims and bring the perpetrators to pay for their crimes.
We need the formation of the mind, but also the formation of the heart and spirit. We must give the youth those moral values that, in a unique way, show how to use technical progress correctly. We must form human beings capable of great ideals, capable of forgiveness and reconciliation.
Everything started when we listened to the people and discovered that the biggest problem was internalized poverty. People lose their sense of life, turn inward, become self-absorbed and refuse to believe that things can get better, that they have the resources to change a crisis into an evolution. Self-esteem is reduced to the minimum and leaves room for graver symptoms that can turn into a terrible psychiatric disease like depression.
For forty years his food and sleep were insufficient, humanly speaking, to sustain life. And yet he labored incessantly, with unfailing humility, gentleness, patience, and cheerfulness. Crowds of people from all walks of life came pressing at his confessional. Only death marked the end of John Mary Vianney’s unrelenting struggle with sin. This is why the Curate of Ars is looked upon as the patron of all priests in pastoral life.
“And He said to them: the harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few.” (Read Luke 10:2)
