good morning. good morning. it's a beauty. it's pleasure and an honor to be here with father royall, who is who is a hero and i'm very thrilled to able to ask him some

questions that have troubled me. you know, he is a priest. so one can confess. i'm going to start with a very simple one. explain what a homeboy is is. well, a homeboy is a gang member, i guess it's also more, broadly speaking, at somebody with whom you have a connection. so we call our organization industries. so it was the largest gang reentry rehabilitation program on the planet. and so 10,000 gang members walk through our doors every year trying to reimagine their lives. but but a homeboy can also mean kind of, generally speaking, you know, that's a person with whom i connect. so it's not just a member of my game. so they connect you they call father they call him father g or

just g because it's all part of this encompassing life that he sets up at homeboy industries. i want to also begin to make sure we're all on the same page. would you talk about tattoos for a minute? this no. the actual text book available in the bookstore could get them today. okay, but that gang's going tattoos. have you ever seen gang tattoos? yeah. so? so they're kind of markings of, you know, declare some allegiance to a particular gang, i guess. and we have free tattoo removal, so we have a clinic in our headquarters, three laser machines and one paid physician assistant and like 46 volunteer doctors. so we remove tattoos monday through friday 9 to 5. so if anybody's their tattoo,

come see me afterwards. and so, yeah, so we don't force anybody get them removed, but we do always offer that. yeah. and what are the tattoo shoes like? where are they and how big are. oh well there was a home got better. there's a home. who works there named mario who was the most tattooed individuals ever work there. and he's all sleeved out all the way down to his fingertips. neck is blackened with the name of gang head shaved covered in tattoos, forehead, cheeks chin, eyelids that save and so that apparently when he's lying his coffin, there won't be any doubt for anybody, i guess. and and so he's so exceedingly tattooed person. i love this book. this is father boyle's new and it's a selection of writings

from other books that he's done done. i know that you say you're tired of people saying what are your success is they want to know stories. could you talk about that a little bit? well, i agree with mother teresa, who says that we're not called to be successful or called to be faithful so part. the problem, of course, is if you know, funders, of course, want evidence based outcomes and success stories. and and if success your engine, then you're likely to only work with the most likely to succeed. and so that's kind of a we're allergic to that at home, boys. we're kind of reverse cherry pickers want to work with folks who are difficult. you know because in a in a sense want to stand with the demonize that the demonizing will stop and stand with disposable so that the day will come when we stop throwing people away.

and so you don't you really want to work with people who nobody else wants to work with. and so that that becomes kind of a hallmark of what we do at homeboy and now women homegirls right yeah though you know women represent like 3 to 5% of the 120,000 gang members in los angeles county. so it's still principally guy thing. but if so, every male who works homeboy has to be a gang member. but every female has to be at least a felon. so because if we said you have to be a gang member, we have any women there. so we we had to change who we were a little bit in order to accommodate women. and now we have 40% women of women who are felons. and that's kind of an amazing thing when someone arrives at

the homeboy first time walks in, tattoos, who greets them? how does that all work? well, our headquarters in chinatown in downtown los angeles is huge place. and it has a bakery and a restaurant and merchandise store and and lots of excellent guacamole. excellent guacamole. so you get you're kroger's. it's good. it's good. so so they they come in and. our place doesn't exist for those who need. it's only for those who want it. so you have to walk in the door. but once you do, it's kind of red carpet and ticker tape parade and and you're welcomed, you know, the buddha say or nobly born remember who you really are. so so you want to create a safe place where people can remember who they really are, where they can be seen and cherished and at the homies, they've been locked up for a lot of years. we'll see.

we're used to being watched, but we're not used to being seen. and so that's a very healing prospect for someone to be seen. and so they walk in, they're greeted by other gang members and then they begin, if they want to get into the 18 month program, they begins with drug testing, then an orientation and then an interview, or they can just come for anger management classes or tattoo removal or therapy or a whole slew of services. but the services are to the culture that cherishes them. so i'm going to read a couple of sentences and then i'm going to ask father boyle to talk about the various people, this book that okay with i'm putting your hand. oh yeah, here that my husband i want you to hear that.

so you quote isaiah do not fear for i am with you. now i want to say something this is a reflective and meditative book. you don't have to be catholic you don't have to be protestant. you don't have to be jewish. you don't have to muslim. i think it's gift for anyone to take some time and read these various, i guess, pieces of essays, right? that buried pieces of essays. and so the first thing is we protect other what does that mean? i don't really know what the this is. i don't know. so i should say something about this book. this is it's a compilation of stories from all my other books and for my money i wanted just to a showcase for the artwork fabric and there's a homie who runs our homeboy art academy fabian devora and so it's all

his artwork so i kind of apply to get his artwork out. so, but what was the thing we protect the one that i'll i'll read you little more during the early months of the pandemic before we settled to whatever needed settling. yeah. so we all kept choosing to be each other's people. he yeah. so that was just reflection on from some part a bulk of probably from the language of, you know, where people really choose to cherish each other. okay. so if the principle is a traumatized person is more likely to cause trauma and damage than it to be through that a terrorist person will be able to find their to the joy their is in cherishing themself and others. and so you create this environment i think it's the secret sauce of homeboy you know lots of people and cities offer

service. we offer the same services but the difference what heals is is the relationship found in a community beloved belonging where people feel they belong. and so that's kind of an essential piece. you become the you know, you're delivering service and and that's good. we do all that's secondary to how people feel. you know, 35 years old as an organization. so we were probably the first 15 years we were job centric and now we're healing centered. and the idea is that an employed gang member may or may not go back to prison or even an educated one may or may not, but but it is our guarantee that a healed gang will not re-offend, period.

the ever and so so that became our goal. and so that's when started this 18 month program that after we had chosen 18 months, we thought two years is too long. one years too short, but 18 months is the time it takes for an infant to attach to the caregiver. so we looked back at that and we said, yeah, it really is about repair, you know, because gang members come in with a disorder, a nice attachment, a psychologist would say, mom either frightened or frightening, and you can't calm yourself if you've never been soothed. so that through the door really barricaded behind a wall, shame and disgrace. and the only thing that can that wall is tenderness. so it's a place where folks are held and protect it and cherish

it like i like to cherish. it's a good one, isn't it? it's a good word. it's a good verb. yeah. we all and we all for that here, here's another. i wish i wish i had a screen to put these but when you buy your own carpet you can have these. so tell me what's it say? this one is rejoice. oh and, this is from a psalm. sing praises to the lord. oh, you his faithful ones and give thanks to his holy name for. his anger is but for a moment his favor is for a lifetime. talk about anger with the guys coming in a lot of anger yeah i suppose there is you know but everything is about something else. gang violence is about a lethal absence of hope. so if you think well, we're going to roll up our sleeves and address violence and which is what we did in the eighties and the nineties was get tough and wipe them out and operation

whatever. you know, it's. but it was about something else. so if you can infuse hope to kids for whom hope is foreign. well, now we're talking. now we're doing something. you know, gang violence, but anger the same thing. it points beyond itself, you know, to the thorn, to homies. always talk about finding thorn underneath, which i think is quite and so that's why we're not really tripped up by behave here. the goal is not to become, you know, a behaving community, but a community of beloved belonging and so behaviors just it's an indicator what something's going on let's address what's going on. but as a society we want to address the symptom rather than what's underneath it. and so i, i think it's important

to, to, you know, what does this mean? what is it telling you? what is this violence what language is it speaking? so you want to anger is but a language and you need to, you know, get it translated. you know. so i should say that i think they picked out a little scripture passages to show them and to my my reflections so that i could highlight the artwork. so it's kind of i was a sucker for the whole thing. well, it's i'm glad i got to play. this is great because it's kind of a devotion call, if you will, you know, where you just one a day and you go, okay and then you go about your day. so as i read to i was reminded of a of a catholic priest who taught me at divinity school henry now and i knew and i did do i they taught me at harvard is that right.

yeah. and his whole theory was that hospitality was ministry. yeah i cooked him a lot of meals. yeah i wasn't such a good cook then. he enjoyed it. oh, he was the gi. a giant. a giant. and i think that in some ways this very reflective because offer a home to the home, you know and it's more home than home they'll say, you know which is that what they say. yeah. because they they've had such a kind of off on a bad experience of home. you know henry, now and taught a course he and parker the team taught at harvard divinity. and it was a course on ministry. and i remember somebody asked him what is ministry? and i remember he was he was going through a good period. and, you know he ended up that's when he left harvard. and found the last. yes. where he died.

but but she said what is ministry and and he was frustrated with her. he said, can you receive people which i'll never forget that. and that was many years ago. and it reminded me of. a home you i was in houston, i gave a talk and he was covered tattoos and he was working with gang members in houston and he came up to me and he pleaded with me and he said, how do you them meaning gang? and i found myself well, for starters, stop trying to reach. can you reached by them, which reminded me of what henry nolan had said. can you receive people? can you reached by them? can you allow your heart be altered? and that ties into the earlier about success, because if it's about fixing, saving and rescue, then it's about you. so you don't to the margins to

make a difference. you go to the margins so that the folks at the margins make you different and then it becomes about us, which is a whole different, but it connects to his notion of hospital, but receiving people so i'm going to continue down this path. don't stop. i don't i don't i'm very committed. oh, i wish, i could and i this line, god can get tiny if we're not careful not to talk about that. yeah. you know, so think there's nothing more consequential than our notion of god because if punitive, then you have no choice except to be punitive. but if god is spacious, expansive, then that's how you're going to be in the world. compassion and loving and kind and meister eckhart. mystic and a theologian who died in, i don't remember, 1320 or

something, but he he used to say, which sounds so modern, it is a lie any talk of god that doesn't comfort you? well, that is a spacious god as opposed to finger wagging one. and that's a warm as opposed to a cold, bitter wind and so, so don't want the notion to be sometimes our notions young you know they're like baby teeth, you know, i don't have anything against baby teeth, but, you know, you're going to move beyond them to something more formal, whole and stronger. and that's as it should be. that's what maturation, you know, should look like. and so is is there formal religious stuff that happens within the home? boy institution? no, because you know, homies are you know, they're they're

atheists they're, you know, christian, not catholic or they're calf like or buddhists or they're muslim, you know. so, so there isn't any kind of though we a morning meeting where somebody gives a for the day and we announce things and and somebody always leads a prayer to end it but it's it's as spacious as our god would hope would be. i love that. so. here's a psalm for your steadfast love is greater than the heavens and your faithfulness reaches to the clouds. now we know you're faithful what what percentage? this is a bad but i want to ask it what what percentage of the homeboys homeboys i don't know say succeed, which i say when i mean what percentage you know

part of the language would use would be transformation, not that i transform somebody, for example, but that transformation happens. there. and in transformation is coming to know the truth of who you are that you're exactly what god had in mind when god made you transformation is finding your true self and loving, being able to let love live through you. so, you know, sometimes funders will say, yeah, you know, we like what you're doing, but we want to we want to fund, you know, programs that help kids, children. i go, well, all of homies are parents and and they become sturdy and resilient at homeboy. and after 18 months, they leave us. and in place has become a sanctuary. and then they become the

sanctuary that they saw. and then they go home and they provide that sanctuary to their kids. and suddenly you've broken a cycle hard to know what success is, except that that's transformative. where i heard a homie say the other day, he goes, my kids will never join a gang. and he says that with some certainty, but he's right. he be certain of that, only he has effectively broken a cycle. and that's you hope for the problem with success is in the old days you know somebody would leave get arrested again, relapse or something and used to fret about it. we used to say, my gosh, you know, now maybe they'll be back and nobody says that now we all say he'll be back. and there's a kind of a confidence in that, a certainty, that's well-founded.

you know, they all come back, so then you start believe in the dosage that somebody is getting a dose of something and then that that's powerful and they'll never forget that dose, which is why they come back, because once you've had that experience of inhabiting the truth of who you are. and you know, we're allergic to idea of holding the bar up and asking folks to measure up mainly because the god we actually have doesn't do that. so you hold the mirror up, you give people back. it's exquisitely mutual. you stand looking at each other or nobly born. remember who you really are. and then together you're inhabiting your own dignity and your own nobility, and that is chance formation all for everybody involved. so it's not like i will impart

this to you. it's do this together and i will do it by way of receiving and allowing you to reach and allowing you to my heart and i think it's a good way to be in the world. i want to sidetrack for a minute. why are gangs so prevalent in in east los angeles and among i don't know is still mexican-americans. is it also guatemalan americans and honduran americans are among latin americans. why is that? well, it's because it's about a lethal absence of hope. go to the places in l.a. county, where that exists. and it's going to be where people carry more than any other place. part of the goal of is to is to invite people to stand in awe at

what folks have to carry. rather than stand in judgment at how they carry it. and and you want people to in the in the course of that to welcome their own wound because if we don't welcome our own world, we will be tempted to despise the wounded, which is a thing that happens in our country. and and so the movement towards compassion is, is an understanding of the thorn underneath what are people. i grew up in l.a. gang cap over the world, went to loyola high school. i know wonderful parents, sisters, two brothers. and there was no chance that would join a gang. none. and that's not because of some, you know, moral sense. that's just i won all the lotteries, you know parents and zip code and jesuit education or

whatever it is you want to list the list is long you know but oh you know morality has never kept us moral it's only kept us from each other so it's not a very helpful construct actually because it keeps us from seeing that in fact. some people have carry more than others, so that should lead us to a sense of of deep compassion and tenderness now that we have so many people in, los angeles county, living on the streets. the last count was 64,000. at and of those 64,000, 15,000 were women. when i was at the l.a. times in the eighties and i first wrote about the downtown women's center, had opened on skid row. we had 400 women living on the streets in los angeles county. now it's up to 15,000. and these are not women who are who have anywhere to go at

night. they are on the streets. and there's lots of programs that we're trying to make work and a lot of good people trying to do it. but i've always been shocked. and how much people really find the poor distasteful that mean i'm not talking about people living under the overpasses. i'm talking about just poor people. and i asked you to comment. this are not attractive. they just aren't they don't have a good haircut. i'm only going to talk about women. they don't have a good haircut. they have the right clothes. they're not clean. they're talking god through their toaster ovens. i mean, they're really quite mess. and so there's some unpleasant but seemingly natural reaction that we want to distance herself from the poor or we want to make them into an objectified

presence and now you've just turned that all around where you are. it's amazing. that's a compliment. it's really amazing. so, you know, i think what would we have to embrace in order to make progress in everything, you know, a woman who works with homeless says, you know, people don't become because they run out of money they become homeless because they run out of relationships which also with gang members and that what would we have to embrace to actually make progress on the front of the house and violence and police brutality and you name it what would we have to embrace? i think we'd have to embrace two things. two notion norms and beliefs that every human is unshakable,

a good gang members have taught me that. and number two, mother teresa used to say that problem the world's is that we've just forgotten that we belong to each other. so every being is unshakable and good good and we belong to each other. we embrace those things things. it would only change everything. and that's a tough one. no, i just the parentheses know in the wake of tyree nichols and his death, you know, they disbanded that special police task force called scorpion. and the r p and the word scorpion, an acronym stands for restoring peace. now, when say, well, you know, if you asked any police officer anywhere, what does restore peace to de-escalate violence? no, they know this is not

anti-police to say this. i don't think. except it's anti us in as much as we're all complicit in this notion. if you say if you ask any police officer on that task force or otherwise what is your what's your goal, what are what do you do? what's your task? i think they would answer it. as i've heard officers answer it many times. they would say, our task is a simple. one, get the bad guy. now we're complicit because we think there is such a thing as a bad guy. and if there is a bad guy, then all bets are off. you can do anything. i just heard the other day i think it was in l.a. a double amputee, homeless in wheelchair shot, death by the police. why? because he had a and he was brandishing it. they didn't shoot him because he was a threat i mean gosh, they

shot him because he had presented himself indicated that, in fact, he was a bad guy. how did he do that? he had a knife he was brandishing it. we will make progress if we embrace those two notions. everybody's unshakable good and we belong to each other. and people will say to me, i mean, i know countless people murdered murdered and i have never met a bad person. and that doesn't make me. father flanagan. that just goes i've met despondent pe apartment, mentally ill people. i've met people i've met damaged people i've never met a bad person. but once you can see that everybody is essential truth is that they're unshakable and good and there are things that

prevent this person from knowing that. goodness me, the other day in my office we were finishing a conversation and he says, you know what? i think the point of life is? i said, what? he said, to remove blindfold and. i said, that's pretty good. and i said, and once you remove that blindfold, what do you see? and he put his hand on his heart and he said, goodness, and that's exactly right. is despair, is it trauma? is it damage is it mental illness? remove the blindfold. once the blindfold falls, what do you see you see unshakable? goodness. and it's okay for me, you, us to see it before the person sees that. so it's frustrating because we don't make progress. we kind of spin wheels and it's because we cling to notions that

are. the opposite of how god sees. if i may dare to say that i think he can say it mean i'm for that i'm for that. so i spend a lot of my life involved with the downtown women's center where we have an extra ordinary new chairperson, elizabeth farrow. and we're moving along to sustainable housing, opening buildings all over the city. and it's so interesting to me the two original buildings, which downtown were built years ago and women have aged in those apartments. and when you go into those apartments, they're perfect. i mean, you cannot believe, mean. i often think maybe on their hands and knees scrubbing the floor at night i mean they're perfect the dishes are perfect. the bed is made. it's like a military operation. and it's so amazing to me that if you people a chance which is

what you've talked all through this conversation, that they really do many times rise up to the occasion. they really do want be a better person and. i don't mean to make that simplistically, but i think it's factual that. then people say, i can do that. i can. we all have friends who are mired in in depression and then maybe they take a pill, maybe take a therapist, and suddenly they come out the other side. if we're lucky and we're astounded by how well they're doing, because they suddenly have an exit from their problem and you provide i'm going back to the book. i got a few more things to ask you. okay. this is. in the correspondence with the priest, ireland, jackie kennedy, that she felt bitter towards god, the assassination of her

husband. how could god let this happen? she asked. but god wasn't. the texas school book depository. sorry, aiding and abetting god was and is in the heartbreak and then the insight point of sadness. and then arms that we wrap around our grief. i have felt this every time a kid is gunned down down. yeah, so this was tomorrow. i have a funeral of a 13 year old boy who was stabbed to death in a chick-fil-a in downtown l.a.. it was on the news. well, his father, a kid named marco who worked for us and had moved from homeboy in doing really well. and the trade and obviously this is his oldest son. he's just beside himself with. grief. but he's was i hope no longer he was utterly convinced that this happened because this was sort

of god's way, paying him back for all the horrible he had been engaged in as a kid and as an act of gang member and, you know, the church has done a lot of damage in terms of this notion, you know kind of. and i it's so regrettable and heartbreaking for because, you know, obviously, god's heart is broken by the very thing that breaks the heart of this kid. and and god didn't have anything to do with it. and and the ones who surrounded this kid and fought him and then ultimately stabbed him to death, you who are kids who are carrying stuff that that we all need to help in healing. so, you know, even as we talk about hate, these days dismantling hate and i go, i don't know i've never i'm 68

years old, but i've never met a healthy person who hated period ever. nobody. well, nobody whole healthy has ever hated so is it about hate or is it about and how do we walk each other home to health? how you know, at at the moment, you know, mass and is about choosing punish wound rather than heal wound. by the same token you know how do you hate hate is an indicator it's pointing beyond to to people being. well i recently i was chicago midway airport and it was the tale of shirts. there was a woman who had a teacher that said love not hate. i remember looking at it and i'm going, oh, that's why we don't

make progress because it's me, you i love you, hate i stand against you. it's about me. and it's not very sophisticated. in the same airport, i saw a woman wearing a t shirt, huge capital letters. it said unwell. and and i remember thinking, oh, wow. finally progress. in a and i think that's has everything to do with everything first of all it can't be about me if i denounce something, it's really about me. i don't know how else to say that. and how do how do you help people? how do you love into wholeness? how you as ram dass used to walk people whole and and i that's what we're called to do and it's why we don't make progress because it's still us against them. i love and you hate and i'm

against you and but but it's really about something else. and the trick in life is always to find the something else. so nobody healthy. the history of the world has shot up an elementary school or a dance hall or invaded ukraine train or slapped chris rock at. the oscars. i mean, the list is long and and it and it's not about violence it's not about hate. it's about we none of us are. well, until all of us are. well. and if we believe that we're unshakable and good and we belong each other, then we're going to roll up our sleeves and and how am i going to help how will we help each other get to the place of wholeness? and and it's not a and for all thing, we're all on a continuum of of of unhealthy, you know, or

health you know. so i just think it's a it's a it's a necessary step in order to progress. we would do well to ask ourselves, why don't we make progress we're still we're always spinning our wheels when it comes to these hugely vexing. social it sounds to me like you've made a lot of progress, father. a lot of progress. so i'm going to ask you, i think we're coming to an end and ah i'm going to ask the oh my god. does say 527. okay. counting down. i never even noticed that. i never even noticed i was so busy talking to tell me what i should have asked you and. i didn't. i never know. jump in, jump in. come on. i don't know. i mean, i. yeah, i was channel surfing the

other day and i came across the dalai lama, who was being interviewed by somebody, the bbc. and i can't what the question was. but he was trying to answer what was kind of the mark in the measure of authentic religion or religious experience. it was more like religion. you know his english is is tough, you know, and it's a little it had subtitles know so you could really understand him and he said the mark the measure of it, it kind of stops. and he he puts his hand on his chest and he says warm heartedness, which is a clunky word in english we would probably wouldn't use it you but he used it several more times you know and he'd come back to it and it was clunky each time you know warm hearted ness and i thought yeah you know, it's part of the sense of it was, you know, that there was an inner

peace, a warm heartedness that was internal, a discovery of the truth of who you are. but then it was also about how you are in the world. know it's like receiving the tender glass, which is the truth of god is and then choosing to be tender glance in the world and in choosing to be in the world who god is, compassionate, loving and kind. and then discover. i think that kindness is the only non delusional response, everything and which is to say all the other responses are delusional. our rage, our resentment, our the list is long of those things all delusional. the only non delusional response to everything is kindness. so then the heartedness becomes how be in the world and and i think ultimately that's the thing that that guides and helps

and transforms and all of us to relational and the fullness you know which is. or as jesus would say my joy yours your joy complete. i think that wraps us up. thank you all very much. it's great to have you all here and. honor for me to be here for the first time with such an guest for a conversation on what's his