In Los Angeles, the gang capital of the world, we have 1,100 gangs and 120,000 gang members so it is a daunting, complex social dilemma. – Greg Boyle
You stand with the least likely to succeed until success is succeeded by something more valuable: kinship. You stand with the belligerent, the surly and the badly behaved until bad behavior is recognized for the language it is: the vocabulary of the deeply wounded and of those whose burdens are more than they can bear. – Greg Boyle
We need the disruption of categories that lead us to abandon the difficult, the disagreeable, and the least likely to go very far. – Greg Boyle
People have started to see that ‘smart on crime’ rather than ‘tough on crime’ makes sense. – Greg Boyle
Kids are different from adults. They are not as developed as far as brain science, controlling impulses, and maturity, and fall prey to all kinds of pressures. – Greg Boyle
My church is in the detention facilities where I preside and celebrate the Eucharist. To me that’s the church. That’s the people of God. – Greg Boyle
Homeboy Industries has chosen to stand with the ‘demonized’ so that the demonizing will stop; it stands with the ‘disposable’ so that the day will come when we stop throwing people away. – Greg Boyle
We ought not to demonize a single gang member, and we ought not to romanticize a single gang. – Greg Boyle
The poor evangelize you about what’s important and what is the Gospel, and that that’s where the joy is. – Greg Boyle
Homeboy Bakery is an alternative to kids who have found themselves, regrettably, in gangs and want to redirect their lives. – Greg Boyle
The arms of God reach to embrace, and somehow you feel yourself just outside God’s fingertips. – Greg Boyle
Gangs are bastions of conditional love, and one of the ways to counteract it is to offer community, which will always trump gang, and that’s what happens at Homeboy Industries. – Greg Boyle
I know two L.A.s. Half my life was around the house my folks had for 46 years at 3rd and Norton. The other half was in Boyle Heights on the Eastside, working with gang members. – Greg Boyle
I always have a funny story at communion time that underscores that no one is perfect, and that communion is not for perfect people but for hungry people. – Greg Boyle