Fr. Boyle: Feel kinship with the poor and powerless

Friday, Feb. 26, 2016

SALT LAKE CITY — Sharing stories both poignant and powerful, Jesuit Fr. Greg Boyle spoke Feb. 20 at the University of Utah as part of the Social Justice Lecture Series.

His audience included not only students but members of the wider community, who laughed at some of Fr. Boyle’s stories from his 30 years of building Homeboy Industries, which began in Los Angeles as a school for teenage gang members and now is the largest gang member rehabilitation program in the world, he said. 

In addition to the businesses that the organization runs, it offers an 18-month program that includes job training and case management for those leaving gangs. Each month they see up to 1,000 former gang members and recently incarcerated men and women, according to the website www.homeboyindustries.org.

While many of Fr. Boyle’s stories were humorous, others were poignant. For example, he told of a man who, at the age of 6, was told by his mother that he should kill himself because he was such a burden to her. He also spoke of the time when President Barack Obama met with some of the men at Homeboy Industries. Replying to a question, one of the men said that he worked at the organization’s diner, “‘but I mainly work on myself: anger management, therapy, parenting. Yeah, I mainly work on myself.’ And the leader of the free world shook his hand and said – with great emotion, actually – ‘I commend you,’” Fr. Boyle said. “As well he should, because it’s hard work.”

Those at Homeboy Industries often work with others who had been rival gang members. Fr. Boyle told of driving with one man who received a jokingly insulting text from another.

“They used to shoot bullets at each other, now they shoot text messages,” Fr. Boyle marveled. “There’s a word for that: The word is kinship.”

Without kinship, there will be no peace, no justice, no equality, he said. 

To change the world, people must have the sense “that we belong to each other; that there is no ‘us’ and ‘them,’” said Fr. Boyle.

“The measure of our compassion lies not in our service to those in the margins, but only in our willingness to see ourselves in kinship with them, because here’s the truth: If we don’t welcome our own wounds, we will be tempted to despise the wounded,” said Fr. Boyle. “It would seem that the measure of health in any community at all may well reside in our ability to stand in awe of what the poor have to carry rather than stand in judgement at how they carry it.”

He opened his talk by complimenting those who packed the College of Social Work auditorium. 

“There’s a kind of a vision that brings you out on a Saturday morning, and it has very little to do with me,” he said. “It has to do with wanting the world to look differently than it currently looks.”

Among those who attended the talk was William Trentman, who teaches theology and social justice at Juan Diego Catholic High School. Fr. Boyle’s message was about true compassion, Trentman said, “not just showing up and giving service, but the manner in which you give it. … I think it’s a strong message for the young men and women that I teach.”

Judge Memorial Catholic High School sophomore Zoe Glasgow also was at the presentation. She went because she received extra credit for her religious class, “but I’m really glad I came,” she said, adding that “it wasn’t just serious issues, it was also funny and uplifting. … We should get together as a community and try to find a way to help other people here.”