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FATHER GREG AND THE HOMELESS

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 Celeste Fremon (1995) Father Greg and the Homeboys, New York: Hyperion, 320pp. 

OVERVIEW 

Most don’t know the real story of life in an inner-city neighborhood where two ethnicities with gangs abut and overlap. Tensions and violence spiral to a point where those caught up in gang activity for defense as well as revenge reach a “don’t care” attitude and way of life. 

The neighborhood described by this LA Times journalist, who was captivated by Fr. Gregory Boyle’s story, is Pico-Aliso Neighborhood of East LA, and the nationally acclaimed hero is a Jesuit priest who becomes a father-figure to all Latino youths willing to accept his help.

Whatever value this book may have in equipping readers to do youth work, it certainly makes for an engaging and challenging story for all who care. Celeste Fremon has tried to show that an exciting, adventurous story comes from meaningful and daring actions, and this is precisely what Father Greg does. Like any good adventure story we learn how the hero—Father Greg—manages to do so in an extraordinary way. 

The book instructs us through his examples, and with principles he's learned in entering a seemingly hopeless and violent situation. It shows him early on in his career, as a passionate but not-too-savvy missionary, just returning from a spiritual awakening in Bolivia. We watch this fairly normal person with whom we might identify, grow into the now famous Father Greg Boyle. Along the way it gives us an eye-opening and fairly unconventional picture of youth violence.

Fremon compares Father Greg's talent to that of playing the piano. Anyone can learn how to play; with enough practice and dedication almost anyone can learn how to hit the right notes. But some people are simply in a different class—the virtuosos who take the same notes to a completely different level. The amateur may flatter herself to think she has learned to play, but when she sees the master at work she can tell the difference. A virtuoso piano player is an impressive person, but Greg's work is of a very different sort. We are forced to ask what kind of talents must he have, and however did he acquire them? There are many people in his community who care a great deal about the gang members—other priests, youth workers, parole officers, parents—but why do so few have the effect that Fr. Greg has? 

To answer this question, Fremon tells the story of Greg's work, from 1986 when he first came to Pico-Aliso neighborhood to the present—as former pastor of Delores Mission Church and founder/director of Homeboy Industries. Fremon makes no specific argument about his abilities, but shows him working in a series of significant incidents, allowing readers to draw their own conclusions. If there is one thing to describe Fr. Greg’s approach to urban youth and their community, it is people-centered. He is not program-centered, pushing either an organization or a theoretical plan. He has not come to label either community or its people with negative descriptions. 

Here’s how Fr. Greg puts it: 

(Treating gang members as human beings, even when they’ve become vicious killers of kids they’ve known all their lives) may sound simplistic, but I believe in that strategy with all my heart. A success for me is when it is clear to a kids that there exists at least one person who will love him no matter what. Most of us have tons of people in our lives who have that no-matter-what quality to the relationships. These kids don’t. So hang on to your hate because their behavior will reflect that lack. And that’s what this mess is all about. 

First of all, we get to see Greg's theory of youth violence, which is an almost word-for-word reproduction of James Garbarino's arguments (see Lost Boys review). Almost none of the kids Greg works with come from intact families: most fathers either missing, or if in the home, alcoholics, abusive or both. Given that these kids received little love, support or opportunity from their family or from society at large, they quite naturally turned to each other, to youth gangs. And they understandably have a lot of anger with which to deal. One of the youths interviewed for the book said that anger is the motivation for the shootings, and shootings themselves lead to even more anger.

 
"Here's the problem," Father Greg says. "As a society, we don't believe these kids are human beings. And our policies...reflect that." The justice system acts like its job is to get the bad kids off the streets, and the police don't intervene in the violence unless non-gang members are threatened. Once a kid becomes involved in a gang the system stops caring about them as people, and such policies only add to the rejection that the youth already feel. Gang-involved youth tend to feel like their lives are of little value, so they are quite willing to kill and to be killed in response. Greg describes gang homicides as being more like suicides than murders. Because of this, his primary goal in working with these kids is to prove that he cares about them. The more they come to respect him the more they will value his care, which begins to work in a self-reinforcing cycle, much like the cycle of despair Greg is trying to fight. 
 
Fr. Greg says direct confrontations with gang members can often be very effective: it shows that you really care about what the kid does. The first time Greg ran into the middle of a shootout, yelling for people to shoot him if they're going to shoot anyone, he was running a serious risk. But that action won him a great deal of respect, so that the next time he did it he was running a much smaller risk, as the youth would not shoot someone whom they respect, someone who cares about them.
 
When Greg first came to the community as a young idealist from suburban L.A., full of passion for Liberation Theology and a desire to help the poor, respect was in short supply. He was, after all, replacing "a venerable Mexicano" priest, and the community was skeptical at best. Greg made a point of walking around the community, talking to people about what problems they might have, and he soon found that gang violence was the big issue. When he learned this, he made a point of getting to know the gang members. They were even less interested, and would laugh whenever they saw him: "It was the kind of experience," he recalled, "that is calculated to make you feel insecure and stupid. I spent a lot of time in those days feeling very insecure and stupid." 
 
This is roughly the part of the story where Greg's actions begin to differ from everyone else's. He describes his decision:

I knew it was like the proverbial fall from a horse. If you don't go back right away, you'll never go back at all. I would tell myself, 'No matter what happens, I'm going to walk out there every day.' 
 
This bravery, this dogged pursuit of whatever he is most afraid of, can be seen throughout his work.
 
In any case, he soon found things he could do to gain the gang members' respect. The most important of these was visiting their friends in jail; he would bring letters to those on the outside. Soon people began to look forward to seeing him, just as they look forward to seeing a mailman. Once they were willing to give him a chance, they soon found he cared about them much more than any other adults they had met. He really was willing to sacrifice his life for their sake, and to spend his money for their sake—he proved this over and over to them.
 
Greg came to a significant conclusion: the most important thing a gang member could get was a legal job. A job gave them a reason to care about their prospects in life, to believe that they really can escape their past mistakes. He says that the limiting factor is not that youth do not want jobs—he says he is constantly flooded with urgent and demanding requests from youth. The problem is, few employers are willing to hire a former gang member. Several of the youth Fremon interviewed say the money they earn from selling drugs simply doesn't satisfy like legal earnings do. They say that they love the feeling of exhaustion that comes at the end of an honest day's work. It's an exhaustion that practically gives them energy, whereas selling drugs makes them want to lie around and do nothing. In addition, many gang members have families to care for—if not girlfriends and children, then often their mothers—and the concerns of their families motivate them in ways their own concerns do not. Much of Greg's work, therefore, was trying to find jobs, and when push came to shove, he often had to pay the wages out of his own pocket. 
 
The rest of Greg's work consisted of walking around the neighborhood at night, trying to persuade angry gang members not to shoot each other. In this he was often surprisingly successful, though many times he was not. Early in his career Greg believed he would be able to end neighborhood's conflicts; soon he realized this was impossible. Instead, he learned to measure success by individuals, and he certainly was the cause of many individual success stories. Fremon conducted interviews with several youth Greg knew best; from these we get a more detailed and authentic picture of what sort of needs they have, and why Greg's work matters to them. 
 
From these stories we learn what Greg can do—and what he cannot. Everyone he worked with admits a degree of self-respect and hope they say comes from him—a ray of light in their otherwise dark lives. But they also describe what it feels like to be consumed by rage and hopelessness. Even though Greg spends all his efforts fighting that rage and hopelessness, and even though his efforts are obviously of inexpressible importance to them, too often hopelessness wins out in the end. Several of the youth whose stories we hear are dead by the end of the book. 
 
Father Greg is on his way, with a young friend, Sergio, to inform Mario that her teenaged son has been shot.
 
It is lightly drizzling by the time Greg gets back to the projects, Silent is still with him. Maria has moved out to the front porch of the apartment where she sits without moving as Greg parks his car and proceeds up the walkway towards her while Silent waits at a distance. On the porch, Greg takes one of Maria’s hands and leans over to whisper in her ear. “He’s dead.” Maria’s body begins rocking involuntarily as she opens her mouth to scream. “N-o-o-ooo!” she screams, “N-O-O-OOOOOOOOO! Sergio!” 
 
As nearby neighbors come out of their apartments and homies gather to witness these terrible, primal, indelible screams, Fr. Greg, grieving deeply himself, muses:
 
I’m glad they’re hearing it…. They never hear it. They see the crying. But they never hear that scream. I’ve always wanted them to hear that scream.
 
Through these stories and through Greg's own words, we get some details into what that struggle looks like. One boy avoids a life of delinquency because he watched the Brady Bunch when he was a kid, absorbing their positive emotions. Many hope to have children, even as teenagers, knowing that the needs of the baby will motivate them to care more about their own lives. One fellow says that when someone shoots you, you repress the anger you feel, but when you see the person again all that rage suddenly comes flooding back and you act without thinking. 
 
Stories like these illustrate the context of urban youth ministry, and through these stories we learn how Fr Greg is successful. 
 
QUESTIONS FOR REFLECTION AND DISCUSSION 
  1. For people in urban youth ministry, how might this article (and book) be discussed?
  2. For all others, interested and concerned, what can they/you get out of such a reading? 
  3. How can a person learn the sort of sacrificial love Father Greg describes? If you know you don't have it, how can you get it?
  4. You are not Fr. Greg—so you cannot operate the same way he did. How do/would you gain the respect of violent urban youth? 
  5. Everyone has weaknesses, especially when running a non-profit. Could you guess at what Father Greg's might be?
  6. With what questions, and need for further study and discussion, does this reading leave you?

IMPLICATIONS 

 

  1. The central issue in relating to youth in such risky situations is respect. You must respect them and their situation over a period of time and tested in different ways, so they will come to respect you. 
  2. When someone doesn't care about their own life, the only thing you can do is care about them yourself. And the only way to make them believe you is to sacrifice everything that might have been an ulterior motive—your status, your money—for their sake.
  3. A significant weakness in urban youth ministry, is that its leaders are not taking the time to study their craft with one another. This and other articles here are a good place to begin such study and discussion. 
Peter Bass (with Dean Borgman) cCYS

 

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