Priest Challenges SHU to Build Kinships with Those on the Margins
Father Gregory Boyle and Homeboy Industries fight for those who live amid crime and violence
Sacred Heart University recently hosted the Rev. Gregory Boyle, founder of Homeboy Industries, a gang-intervention, rehabilitation and re-entry program. Boyle’s message was about accepting people who live on the margins of society so the margins can be erased and those standing on them will not be demonized.
The talk was part of the Contemporary Catholic Conversation series, sponsored by SHU’s office of mission integration, ministry & multi-cultural affairs, the department of Catholic studies and the Human Journey Colloquia Series.
Boyle told an overflow crowd at Sacred Heart’s Chapel of the Holy Spirit that treating marginalized people with kindness is important “so that the day will come when we stop throwing people away.”
Two of Boyles “homies,” Yarin Padilla and Frank Vargas, joined the priest to share how they have rebuilt their lives through their association with Homeboy Industries.
Located in downtown Los Angeles, Homeboy Industries provides job training and other services for former gang members and previously incarcerated people so they can redirect their lives and become contributing members of society. It is the largest gang rehabilitation and re-entry program in the world.
Boyle challenged Sacred Heart students to see their school as the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. might have seen it: as the place from which they will go to break down barriers that exclude people. “It’s not the place you come to. It’s the place you go from,” he said.
A Los Angeles native and Jesuit priest, Boyle witnessed the devastating impact of gang violence on his community while he was pastor of Dolores Mission Church in Boyle Heights, then the poorest Catholic parish in Los Angeles, according to his website. He, his parishioners and community members started Homeboy Industries in 1988, training and employing former gang members in a range of social enterprises. The organization also provides critical services to thousands of men and women every year, he said.
The mission to save people who live amid crime and violence is not easy, Boyle said, explaining that in 1988 he buried the first victim of gang violence that he knew. This year, he buried the 251st.
Yet, Boyle said he has not lost his belief in the “connective tissue” of tenderness and the importance of creating a community of belonging. Jesus took four things seriously, he said: inclusion, non-violence, unconditional loving kindness and compassionate acceptance.
He urged SHU students to seek out and build kinships with marginalized members of society as they move along their own life journeys. “We must stand in awe of what the poor have to carry rather than stand in judgment of how they carry it,” said Boyle.
While Boyle had an accepting crowd at SHU, he said he often finds people who are skeptical of his work with gang members. Some consider it a waste of time, including a woman who once asked, “Do you bring gang members to Christ?”
He responded, “No, they bring me to Christ. You go to the margins, and you don’t watch; you see.”
Boyle also is the author of bestsellers Tattoos on the Heart and Barking to the Choir. While at SHU, he signed copies of his new book, The Whole Language: The Power of Extravagant Tenderness, in which he discusses the transformative powers of love and tenderness.
Pictured, from left, are Fr. Greg Boyle, Frank Vargas and Yarin Padilla.