The Honors College held their “Common Book” review lecture with author Father Gregory Boyle at Moody Concert Hall on Tuesday for honors students.
The college has selected a book for its “Honors Common Book Project” every year since 2015 to enrich the Honors College curriculum and cultivate community among its faculty, mentors, students and staff. This year’s book is Boyle’s “Tattoos on the Heart.”
“What he had to say was really interesting,” said Layla Henderson, a freshman majoring in creative media and sports business management, adding that she “loves” the way Boyle tells stories.
Boyle, a Jesuit priest, was born and raised in Los Angeles, California. He served as a pastor of Dolores Mission Church in Boyle Heights during an era referred to as the “decade of death” because of the outcome of gang violence in the early 1980s.
In this decade he radically contradicted California law enforcement’s answer to gang violence — suppression and incarceration — by taking a different approach on treating gangs.
Boyle is best known as the founder of Homeboy Industries, the largest gang-intervention, rehabilitation and re-entry program in the world. For his work, he was awarded the 2024 Presidential Medal of Freedom.
“Tattoos on the Heart,” illustrates the true stories of former gang members — many of whom now work within Homeboy Industries — through themes of transformation, forgiveness and compassion. These members commonly refer to each other as “homies,” a slang term that signifies someone from their hometown.
The title was inspired by a homie who said, “I am going to tattoo that on my heart,” after receiving a heartwarming compliment.
“I took away a message of hope and change. Lots of those stories really resonated with me and made me realize how many people are out there just looking for something that can change their life,” said Matthew McCreary, a freshman majoring in mechanical engineering.
During the lecture, Boyle emphasized the main theme of his book — compassion — through former gang members’ stories of “acatamiento,” a word used by St. Ignatius of Loyola to signify “affectionate awe.”
“You always want to get people to move to a place of compassion,” Boyle said. “Stand in awe at what the poor have to carry, rather than in judgment at how they carry it.”
