Father Greg Boyle of Homeboy Industries Shares Message of Kinship and Compassion

Santa Margarita Catholic High School welcomed Father Greg Boyle S.J. from Homeboy Industries who spoke to our student body Tuesday, March 9, about the transformative power of radical kinship and compassion. 

Boyle is the founder of Homeboy Industries, the world's largest gang intervention program. Homeboy Industries started in East Los Angeles and has expanded to over 250 organizations and social enterprises worldwide. Boyle says, "At Homeboy, we are allergic to holding the bar up to have people measure up to it; instead we hold a mirror up and tell people the truth that you are exactly what God had in mind when God made them."

Father Boyle brought two "homies," David and Isaac, to tell their story of rehabilitation through Homeboy Industries. Their stories of abuse and trauma reiterated the importance of Christ's love in our lives and how we can share that love with others.

'Be compassionate as God is compassionate,' means the dismantling of barriers that exclude.
- Fr. Gregory Boyle

As part of  the sophomore curriculum, students read Boyle's "Tattoos on the Heart: The Power of Boundless Compassion."  Sophomore Havana Anderson illustrated a painting depicting Boyle's work in action and presented it to Father Boyle on stage.

Boyle stated the importance of putting words to action after the student's time in high school by saying, "SM is not the place you go to, but the place you go from...you go from here and take seriously what Jesus took seriously: inclusion, non-violence, unconditional love, kindness, compassion, and acceptance." 

Assistant Principal of Mission Integration Patrick Visconti elaborated on this by saying, "Going from our school to be young men and women of Caritas Christi, the love of Christ, to all they encounter . . . a beautiful and inspirational message, especially during our Lenten journey."

Fr. Greg Boyles' first book, "Tattoos on the Heart: The Power of Boundless Compassion" is on sale in our Campus Store for anyone who wishes to purchase a copy!

Special thanks to the Boyle Family: Kathleen Boyle '91 (Santa Margarita Eagle Foundation Board Member), David Boyle and daughter Fallon Boyle '25, extended family of Father Greg Boyle, for helping to make this event possible for the SM community. 

ABOUT HOMEBOY INDUSTRIES

Homeboy Industries is the largest gang rehabilitation and re-entry program in the world. For over 30 years, they have stood as a beacon of hope in Los Angeles to provide training and support to formerly gang-involved and previously incarcerated people, allowing them to redirect their lives and become contributing members of their community. Learn more about Homeboy Industries.

ABOUT FATHER GREGORY BOYLE

Born and raised in Los Angeles, Father Gregory Boyle is a Jesuit priest who founded Homeboy Industries in Los Angeles, the largest gang-intervention, rehabilitation and re-entry program in the world. From 1986 to 1992 Fr. Boyle served as pastor of Dolores Mission Church in Boyle Heights. Dolores Mission was the poorest Catholic parish in Los Angeles that also had the highest concentration of gang activity in the city. Fr. 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 members in a range of social enterprises, as well as provides critical services to thousands of individuals who walk through its doors every year seeking a better life.  

Fr. Boyle is the author of the New York Times-bestseller Tattoos on the Heart: The Power of Boundless Compassion; Barking to the Choir: The Power of Radical Kinship; and The Whole Language: The Power of Extravagant Tenderness. He has received the California Peace Prize, been inducted into the California Hall of Fame, been named a presidential Champion of Change; and received the University of Notre Dame’s Laetare Medal, the oldest honor given to American Catholics. 

THE VIEWS, THOUGHTS, AND OPINIONS EXPRESSED BY GUEST SPEAKERS BELONG SOLELY TO THE GUEST(S) AND NOT NECESSARILY TO SMCHS.