By Debbie McGoldrick

MARTIN Sheen is still studying away at Galway University in his pursuit of a degree in philosophy, but his mind hasn’t totally drifted from the day job.

Sheen, who caused a stir a couple of months back when he announced his intention to relocate to Galway, is thinking about making a film about the life of Irish priest Father Shay Cullen, a noted human rights campaigner based in the Philippines who for decades has helped the impoverished and abused, particularly the young who have been trapped in a life of forced prostitution.

“Father Shay Cullen truly is a hero. I would be honored to portray him in a movie,” Sheen said last week.

“Thank God for Father Shay, he is a very powerful inspiration and has saved the lives of thousands of these poor children, and he has helped jail some of the world’s most evil pedophiles. What he has achieved is nothing less than a miracle.”

Sheen and the Dublin-born Cullen have been friends since 1979, when they first met on the set of Sheen’s movie Apocalypse Now. “He was shocked with the poverty (in Manila), and when they were making the film he saw and reflected deeply on the evils of war, which led to him getting very involved in the peace movement,” Cullen says.

Their first meeting was actually in a slum rife with disease and human torment. Sheen was so taken aback with what he saw, Cullen recalls, that he paid for supplies to help alleviate their pain, which the priest explained was just another example of everyday life.

“Martin showed only compassion and caring, not revulsion at the nauseating stench that clung to our hair and clothes. The people were covered with the filth and the smell, the dirt and dust of the garbage. To the world they were untouchables and lepers, but to Martin they were just people,” Cullen says.

Sheen and Cullen have stayed close ever since, and the Hollywood star has even proposed a Nobel Prize for his friend, who has been nominated on a number of occasions.

“I couldn’t believe my eyes when I saw what was happening to those poor kids. Children treated like contraband, sexually abused and simply thrown away. There is no one more deserving of a Nobel Prize than Father Shay, I can personally vouch for that,” Sheen says.