On Grief, Loss, and Tenderness: Greg Boyle

Our guest today, Fr. Gregory Boyle, is the founder of Homeboy Industries in Los Angeles, the largest gang-intervention, rehabilitation, and re-entry program in the world.

A native of Los Angeles and a Jesuit priest, Father Boyle served as pastor of Dolores Mission Church in Boyle Heights, then the poorest Catholic parish in Los Angeles, which 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 1000 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.

Fr. Boyle is the author of the 2010 New York Times-bestseller Tattoos on the Heart: The Power of Boundless Compassion. And his new book, The Whole Language: The Power of Extravagant Tenderness, was published by Avid Reader Press in 2021.