Fr. Greg Boyle, SJ ’72 Featured on Chef Roy Choi’s “Broken Bread”
Loyola’s own Fr. Greg Boyle, SJ ’72 was recently featured on Chef Roy Choi’s television show, Broken Bread. He also shared with us his continued work at Homeboy Industries in Downtown Los Angeles.
To watch the full episode highlighting Homeboy and Homegirl Industries, “the pioneer of socially minded food enterprises,” click here or press play below.
Q&A with Fr. Greg Boyle, SJ ’72
How much of your high school education and experience influenced your journey from Jesuit universities to Jesuit priesthood and to Founder/Director of Homeboy?
I entered the Jesuits because of the Jesuits at Loyola High. They were prophetic and hilarious…so I said to myself, “I’ll have what they’re having.” They lived as though the truth were true and they seemed to know how to put first things recognizably first. I found it all compelling and attractive. Plus, Jesus says, “My joy yours…your joy…complete.” Above all, I saw in them “complete joy” and I wanted to live this way as well.
We can’t help but see the connection of going to the margins to invest in those that no one else wants to invest in to the Jesuit philosophy of being a Man and Woman For and With Others. It seems that Homeboy Industries would be run differently and maybe not nearly as successful if it weren’t for a Jesuit at the helm. Do you believe that a Jesuit approach is the recipe for Homeboy’s success?
There is nothing more consequential in our lives than the notion of God. St. Ignatius always spoke of the “God who is always greater.” Without that expansive and spacious notion, going to the margins is nonsensical. Ignatius also says, “Take care to keep always before your eyes, first, God.” The secret of the ministry of Jesus was that God was at the center of it. And so we seek to take seriously what Jesus took seriously: Inclusion. Nonviolence. Unconditional, loving-kindness. Compassionate acceptance.
Homeboy Industries gives your employees a reason to get up in the morning. What gets you up in the morning?
“If it ain’t a pleasure, it ain’t a poem,” William Carlos Williams said of poetry. Same with one’s life. So you allow yourself to be reached by the folks at the margins, and choose to delight in the spirit that delights in your being…through and with them. This, it turns out, is eternally replenishing. You are never depleted nor can you burn out, if you receive the “widow, orphan and stranger” and permit them to alter your heart. It doesn’t get better than that. THAT is where the joy is.
Do you believe Los Angeles will ever see an end to gang violence? Why or why not?
In 1992, we saw 1,000 gang-related homicides in Los Angeles County. Since then, that number has been cut in half…then cut in half again. Every Chief of Police since then acknowledges the singular impact on public safety that Homeboy Industries has had on that social dilemma in our city. Still, five days from now, I will bury my 228th young person killed in our streets for no reason at all. More work to do.
Fr. G and Homeboy is synonymous; it’s hard to think of one without the other. That said, no one lives forever. Looking far into the future, what is your hope for Homeboy Industries and the community it serves?
I snuck in once to a panel discussion, where three homeboys and three homegirls from Homeboy Industries were being peppered with questions from the packed room. I was in the back and no one knew I was there and someone asked the same question you just posed. And a homie named Jose stood up and gestures to the rest of the panel and says: “We all have keys to the place.” And the room gave him a standing ovation.
