After a year studying theology in Rome, he joined the staff of St Patrick's Boys' Academy in Dungannon, Co Tyrone, to teach Latin and religion.
[2] As a schoolteacher of young Catholics ill-treated by the Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC), Faul became involved in the early Northern Ireland civil rights movement,[1] and in 1968 participated in its marches.
[4] For his criticism of the security forces and of the judiciary, Faul was publicly rebuked by Cardinal william Conway concerned lest the church be seen as aligned with republicans.
[5] From the introduction of internment without trial (Operation Demetrius) in 1971 to late 1980s, Faul produced in excess of 150 leaflets and pamphlets detailing security force abuses and calling for reform.
In 1974, in submissions to the Lord Gardiner inquiry into the human-rights context of "counter-terrorism" measures, the two priests documented the use of a wide variety of torture techniques in the interrogation and treatment of IRA suspects.
[8] In Triangle of Death (1975) Faul and Murray highlighted the possibility of security-force collusion in a spate of killings by the loyalist Glenanne Gang of Catholics in the countryside between Portadown, Dungannon and Armagh.
[14] Among his fellow priests, Faul was not alone: in West Belfast Fr Des Wilson suggested that had the hierarchy "given the same measure of recognition and protection and a sense of dignity to those people as the small guerrilla groups have given them, then they would have as much loyalty".
[15] Fr Pat Buckley proposed that had Philbin, in 1969, "led two hundred thousand people up the Falls Road demanding civil rights, the Provos might not have been necessary".
In contrast to Wilson, he defended the priestly rule of celibacy and Church control of schools[21] ("people accuse us of being in the business of brainwashing children.
[23] Critically, and again in contrast to Wilson (embraced by the Provisionals as a "priest of the people"),[24][25] Faul joined his bishops in morally condemning republican campaigns of targeted killings and bombing.
In 1981, as a visiting priest assisting the formally appointed chaplain in the Maze Prison Faul was seen to play a critical role in ending a republican hunger strike.
They felt they were representing their people in all of that.With a sense of that "these men were beating us at our own game", as a priest he also appreciated, within a faith that worshipped a "crucified criminal" and gloried in the "passions of the martyrs", the emotive power of the prisoners decision to starve themselves.
He argued that Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher had shown she would not be moved, and the families agreed with Faul to meet with Gerry Adams in the hope of finding a way to end the protest.
[35] Some republican prisoners refused to take communion from "Thatcher's priest",[1] and a statement issued in September in their name denounced Faul as a "treacherous, conniving man".
[T]he fellows who more or less in the early 70s--as a reaction to the ghetto pogrom of '69--entered the Provos to defend the Catholic Community, they are disgusted by the present civilian killings and the random shootings and the racketeering, the extortion, the forcible taking over of pubs and all.Their release would promote more "independent" thinking, and deprive the Provisionals of their key political asset, the families Once their loved ones are released, the families of prisoners tended to "just disappear" back into the community.
[2][37] Former hunger strikers and prisoners, Republicans and senior members of Sinn Féin attended the large funeral at St. Colmcille's Church, Carrickmore, many having come to respect the work carried out by Faul over his lifetime.