If you attended a Jesuit university or high school in the last decade, you were most likely at some point assigned Father Greg Boyle’s first book (and a New York Times best-seller—so, you didn’t need to have attended a Jesuit school to encounter it) Tattoos on the Heart. Father Boyle is a Jesuit priest, the founder of Homeboy Industries and the author of a new book, The Whole Language: The Power of Extravagant Tenderness, which is scheduled to be released this fall.
We talk to Father Boyle about how Covid and the pandemic restrictions affected his sense of identity and Homeboy Industries’ work, what he’s learned looking back on his years in ministry, and why he is becoming more mystical as he gets older.