Episode 88 with Father Greg Boyle, S.J., Founder and Director of Homeboy Industries, the World‘s Largest Gang-Intervention and Rehabilitation Program

Episode 88 Notes and Links to Father Greg Boyle’s Work 

 

 

 

      On Episode 88 of The Chills at Will Podcast, Pete welcomes Father Greg Boyle, S.J., founder and director of Homeboy Industries. The two discuss Father’s growing up in Los Angeles, his formative days in the Jesuit order, his life-changing time in Bolivia, and the breathtakingly-inspiring work he has done in the almost 40 years that he has worked at Dolores Mission Church and Homeboy Industries. The two discuss Father’s transcendent books, Tattoos on the Heart, Barking to the Choir, and his newest stunner, The Whole Language: The Power of Extravagant Tenderness.

 

 

       A native Angeleno and Jesuit priest, from 1986 to 1992, Father Boyle served as pastor of Dolores Mission Church in Boyle Heights, then the poorest Catholic parish in Los Angeles that also had the highest concentration of gang activity in the city. 

Father Boyle witnessed the devastating impact of gang violence on his community during the so-called “decade of death” that began in the late 1980s and peaked at 1,000 gang-related killings in 1992.  In the face of law enforcement tactics and criminal justice policies of suppression and mass incarceration as the means to end gang violence, he and parish and community members adopted what was a radical approach at the time: treat gang members as human beings. 

In 1988 they started what would eventually become Homeboy Industries, which employs and trains former gang Fathemembers in a range of social enterprises, as well as provides critical services to thousands of men and women who walk through its doors every year seeking a better life. 

Father Boyle is the author of the 2010 New York Times-bestseller Tattoos on the Heart: The Power of Boundless Compassion. His book, Barking to the Choir: The Power of Radical Kinship, was published in 2017. 

He has received the California Peace Prize and been inducted into the California Hall of Fame.  In 2014, President Obama named Father Boyle a Champion of Change.   He received the University of Notre Dame’s 2017 Laetare Medal, the oldest honor given to American Catholics. Currently, he serves as a committee member of California Governor Gavin Newsom’s Economic and Job Recovery Task Force as a response to COVID-19.

Last week, his latest book, The Whole Language: The Power of Extravagant Tenderness came out with Simon & Schuster. 

 

Support and Learn about Homeboy Industries!

 

Father Greg’s Story 

 

Buy G-Dog and the Homeboys: Father Greg Boyle and the Gangs of East Los Angeles (All proceeds go to Homeboy Industries!) 

 

Buy Tattoos on the Heart: The Power of Boundless Compassion (All proceeds go to Homeboy Industries!) 

 

Buy Barking to the Choir: The Power of the Radical Kinship (All proceeds go to Homeboy Industries!) 

 

Buy The Whole Language: The Power of Extravagant Tenderness (All proceeds go to Homeboy Industries!)

 

Support the Incredible Community of Dolores Mission Parish! 

 

At about 2:05, Father Greg talks about how Homeboy Industries is doing in the midst of COVID, including how it has pivoted to working with HOPE Ministries, how inequality has been exacerbated since COVID

 

At about 7:45, Father Greg talks about his childhood in LA, calling his upbringing and his family  “out of a Norman Rockwell painting,” with big families all over his block, altar serving and Mass, and other “glorious” experiences like riding bikes all throughout a downtown LA that was “a ghost town”

 

At about 12:10, Father gives background on his admiration for the Jesuits growing up, including the legendary activist Father Daniel Berrigan and other smart and joyful Jesuits who inspired him

 

At about 17:05, Father describes how his time in Bolivia “ruined [him]” and how his time at Dolores Mission began, becoming the youngest pastor in the history of the 

 

At about 18:45, Father shares some beautiful anecdotes about transformative experiences in Cochabamba and surrounding areas in Bolivia

 

At about 22:45, Father and Pete talk about Father’s earliest days at Dolores Mission, especially the 1988-1998 “Decade of Death,” with much of this chronicled in Celeste Fremon’s G-Dog and the Homeboys: Father Greg Boyle and the Gangs of East Los Angeles

 

At about 29:20, Pete and Father discuss the incredible women who have done such incredible things at Dolores Mission Parish

 

At about 30:20, Pete asks Father about how he finds rest while being in charge of such an important and bustling sets of organizations; Father cites the incredible Homies and how everyone “has keys to the place”

 

At about 32:50, Pete recounts an example of Father’s incredible sense of calm in the face of pressure

 

At about 34:00, Father responds to Pete’s question about Father’s experience that has led him to often say and write that “no hopeful kid has ever joined a gang”

 

At about 35:50, Pete notes some themes from Father’s books, starting with ideas of guilt and shame that accompanies great trauma, as well as ideas of victims and victimizers and how “elastic our hearts are”

 

At about 39:10, Father talks about ideas of redemption and “becoming”

 

At about 39:40, Father disavows the idea of him “transforming lives”

 

At about 41:00, Father talks about the “secret sauce” of Homeboy Industries

 

At about 42:00, Father explains his idea that he doesn’t want “volunteers” who plan to “reach” those they work with

 

At about 42:50, Father and Pete reflect on an incredible story about Carlos from Father’s Barking to the Choir and the importance of attention and personalized affection

 

At about 46:00, Father talks about the ACE index and its huge impact on adolescents and adults, as well as how a failure to appreciate and treat trauma leads to societal divisions 

 

At about 48:20, Father and Pete discuss the “slow work of God,” as described in Father’s books

 

At about 51:00, the two discuss love and kinship and their intricate relationship and their importance in the books; they recount a telling story about the church and its sense of community 

 

At about 52:45, Pete wonders how Father gets former and current enemies to work together

 

At about 56:30, Father and Pete reflect on a few heartbreaking, beautiful, and telling stories from his books

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Please tune in for the next episode, a conversation with Luke Epplin, whose writing has appeared in The Atlantic, the New Yorker Page-Turner, The Washington Post, GQ, Slate, Salon, The Daily Beast, among others, and he has appeared in such places as NPR’s “Weekend Edition,“  The New York Times, the MLB Network, and ESPN. He is the author of Our Team: The Epic Story of Four Men and the World Series That Changed Baseball about Bob Feller, Satchel Paige, and the Cleveland Indians of the 1940s. The episode will air on November 2.