Mission Week Ignite and Honorary Doctorate Commissioning
Channel: MarquetteU
Date: 2021-02-11

Marquette University will confer honorary doctorate on Rev. Gregory Boyle, S.J., founder of Homeboy Industries in conjunction with the university’s Mission Week, Feb. 8-12, 2021.

Boyle will receive a Doctor of Humane Letters during an Ignite Marquette event, at which he is the featured speaker, on Wednesday, Feb. 10, at 7:30 p.m. 

“Father Boyle’s work with Homeboy Industries is a reminder of the power of hope in the face of adversity. Likewise, the work on behalf of immigrants by Sister Flynn has been so invaluable for those coming to our country in search for a better life.”

Fitting with this year’s Mission Week theme of “Open to Hope,” Ignite Marquette will host Boyle for a night of reflection and stories from Homeboy Industries, which provides hope, training, and support to formerly gang-involved and previously incarcerated men and women allowing them to redirect their lives and become contributing members of their community. “Gang violence,” Boyle says, “is about a lethal absence of hope.”

Boyle witnessed the devastating impact of gang violence first hand, serving as pastor in the poorest Catholic parish in Los Angeles that also had the highest concentration of gang activity in the city. He started what would eventually become Homeboy Industries in 1988 to employ and train former gang members in a range of social enterprises, as well as provide critical services to thousands of men and women seeking a better life. 

Boyle is the author of the 2010 New York Times-bestseller “Tattoos on the Heart: The Power of Boundless Compassion.” His second book, “Barking to the Choir: The Power of Radical Kinship,” was published in 2017. He has received the California Peace Prize, been inducted into the California Hall of Fame and, in 2014, President Barack Obama named him a Champion of Change.