Cherished Belonging: The Healing Power of Love in Divided Times

In a world increasingly marked by division and discord, Jesuit priest Gregory Boyle offers a transformative vision of community and compassion. Over the past thirty years, he has transformed tens of thousands of lives as the founder of Homeboy Industries, the largest gang-intervention program in the world, built on two unwavering principles: we are all inherently good and we belong to each other.

In his new book, Cherished Belonging, Boyle calls back to Christianity’s origins as a spiritual movement of equality, emancipation, and peace, proposing a village that cherishes rather than excludes and punishes. Through stories brimming with wisdom, humor, and inspiration, the book invites us to nurture the connections that are all around us and live with kindness, reminding us that “the answer to every question is, indeed, compassion,” and that love is the light inside everything.

Thursday, March 5th, 6-7:30 PM CST | In-person
Registration fee: $25 | Presenter will be in person at Alexine Chapel, The Well Spirituality Center in LaGrange Park.
Co-sponsored by the St. Catherine of Siena Center at Dominican University

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Father Gregory Boyle a Jesuit priest is the founder of Homeboy Industries in Los Angeles, the largest gang-intervention, rehabilitation, and re-entry program in the world.

Born and raised in Los Angeles and Jesuit priest, 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 2010 New York Times-bestseller Tattoos on the Heart: The Power of Boundless Compassion. Followed by Barking to the Choir: The Power of Radical Kinship (2017) and The Whole Language: The Power of Extravagant Tenderness (2021). His most recent work is Cherished Belonging: The Healing Power of Love in Divided Times (2024).

He has received the California Peace Prize and has been inducted into the California Hall of Fame. In 2014, President Obama named Fr. Boyle a Champion of Change. He received the University of Notre Dame’s 2017 Laetare Medal, the oldest honor given to American Catholics. Homeboy Industries was the recipient of the 2020 Hilton Humanitarian Prize validating 32 years of Fr. Greg Boyle’s vision and work by the organization for over three decades. Most recently he was one of the recipients of the 2024 The Presidential Medal of Freedom, the United States’ highest civilian honor.