2015 Sol Kanee Lecture on Peace and Justice Jobs not Jails: Providing Hope, Training, and Support to Formerly Gang-Involved and Previously Incarcerated Men and Women Father Gregory Boyle, SJ Founder and Executive Director, Homeboy Industries Tuesday, October 6 @ 1:30 pm Multi-Purpose Room 210, University Centre, University of Manitoba Watch the video on the Mauro Centre YouTube Channel T R A N S C R I P T Speaker 1: Good afternoon. Welcome to today's 2015 Sol Kanee Lecture on Peace and Justice, an initiative sponsored by the Richardson Foundation, that features distinguished speakers in peace and justice studies. Welcome to members of the university community. Welcome to students. Welcome to staff. Welcome to supporters of the Mauro Centre, to members of the Board of Directors and to all who contribute their time and energies to make events such as the Sol Kanee lecture a possibility. Welcome to members of the community. Welcome to the community of Fort Richmond. Welcome to the community of Winnipeg, the community of Manitoba and anyone who's from beyond the Manitoba boundaries. Many of you have traveled very far, many of you might have struggled to find parking. You may have rearranged your schedules and otherwise accommodated to be here today, so we very much welcome you. Welcome to each of you in particular because your very presence attests to the increasing interest in building global and local communities founded much more fully on peace principles and the realization of justice. We are very fortunate to have with us today Father Gregory Boyle, who's the founder of Homeboy Industries, who's managed to make the long trek from his home in Los Angeles to be with us here today in Winnipeg. My name is Michelle Glenn and it's my privilege to act as master of ceremonies today. As to the format, we will begin today's by hearing a few words from Dr. Chris Adams, who's the Rector of St. Paul's College and he's also the chair of the Board of Directors of the Arthur Mauro Centre. After that, we will turn to hear from Dr. Jay Doering, who's the Vice Provost and the Dean of the Faculty of Graduate Studies. [00:02:00] Then we will hear from Father Eduardo Para Soto, who will introduce his fellow Jesuit, Father Boyle and Father Soto is also a candidate in the peace and justice studies program here at the University of Manitoba. Finally, we will hear from Father Boyle himself, and after he's made his remarks, he's kindly agreed to entertain questions for a few minutes. We'd ask that you hold your questions until he has finished his speaking. We will conclude with some final remarks from another Ph.D. student, Mrs. Danielle Felicia, who is also in the peace and justice program here at the University of Manitoba. Please, if you haven't picked one up, there are brochures that detail today's lecture, and once again, welcome and with that, I turn to Dr. Chris Adams. Christopher: I hope you aren't confusing this room with the blood donor clinic next door. If you have blood to donate, that's next door. Good afternoon. My name is Christopher Adams and as Rector of St. Paul's College and the Chair of the Board of Directors of the Arthur V. Mauro Centre for Peace and Justice, I want to welcome all of you to the 12th Annual Sol Kanee Lecture on Peace and Justice, featuring Father Gregory Boyle, the founder and Executive Director of Homeboy Industries in Los Angeles. 2015 Sol Kanee Lecture – Fr. Gregory Boyle, SJ Page 2 of 24 At this point in this event, I wish to note that St. Paul's College and the University of Manitoba's campuses are located on original lands of Anishinabek, Cree, Oji-Cree, Dakota and Dene peoples, and on the homeland of the Meti nation. We respect the treaties that were made on these territories. We acknowledge the harms and mistakes of the past and we dedicate ourselves as a community to move forward in partnership with indigenous communities in the spirit of reconciliation and collaboration. The Sol Kanee lecture series on international peace building is supported by the generosity received from the Richardson and Sons family of Winnipeg. [00:04:00] We are grateful for their contribution. As well, we extend our thanks to the leadership of members of the Winnipeg community, such as Mr. Sol Kanee, who is an ardent champion of peace building and human rights and for whom this lecture is named after. Let us also take a moment to acknowledge the center's benefactor, Dr. Arthur V. Mauro, who is here with his wife Naomi Levine. Arthur Mauro, along with the many others who have contributed to the work of the center and of the students enrolled in Peace and Conflict Studies program, without their support, we would not be here for this type of a lecture. Together, through all of our efforts, we have opened the door for greater opportunities to know, understand and walk the path of peace. I want to know welcome Dr. Jay Doering, the University of Manitoba Vice Provost of Graduate Education, who will bring greetings from the University of Manitoba. Dr. Doering? Jay: Thank you, Chris. It is a pleasure indeed for me to bring greetings on behalf of the President's office. I'd like to pick up on some of Dr. Adams' comments and roll things back a little bit. I'd like to start by recognizing a few of the significant events that effectively have us all here today. To do that, we go back to 2001, when Dr. Arthur Mauro made a significant donation to St. Paul's College to create the Mauro Centre for Peace of Justice. From there, we gave rise to the Ph.D. program in Peace and Conflict Studies that was started by Dr. Sean Burn and Dr. Jessica Senehi. Their program's gone on to pick up additional faculty members, Dr. Maureen Flaherty and Dr. Hamdesa Tuso, and is now the academic home to more than 75 graduate students, a not insignificant program. [00:06:00] Last but not least, as Dr. Adams has indicated, is Sol Kanee himself for his leadership and his vision. It only goes to show that if you wrap all these things up, great things happen when we all pull and work together. I believe that the best is probably yet to come. Winnipeg is now home to the Museum for Human Rights. The University of Manitoba is embarking on a Master's in Human Rights graduate program and the University of Manitoba is home to the National Center for Truth and Reconciliation. We're on the precipice of something probably much more significant than we're currently looking at. I would suggest that a global social justice spotlight is very succinctly 2015 Sol Kanee Lecture – Fr. Gregory Boyle, SJ Page 3 of 24 focusing in on Winnipeg and the University of Manitoba, which takes me to today's Sol Kanee lecture. Father Greg, I'm going to avoid the Father Boyle thing because that just gets you in trouble. One of the characteristics of Homeboy Industries is its website and the quote of the day on the website, and earlier today, someone asked Father Greg for a quote and I was going to slip him the one that I'd written down that I took off the website when I went through weeks and weeks of quotes that are still up on their website. The one that I liked was, "The measure of our compassion lies not in our service to others but in our willingness to see ourselves connected to them." The measure of our compassion lies not in our service to others but in our willingness to see ourselves connected to them. Think about it. Father Greg, welcome to the University of Manitoba. [00:08:00] Congratulations on being this year's Sol Kanee lecturer. We're so pleased you're here. Father Eduardo: The first time that I heard about Father Greg was here in Winnipeg. Even though I became a Jesuit 17 years ago, I never heard about him until talking to an ex- offender and gang-related friend who told me about him coming to Canada. He talked with excitement that I quickly bought his book, Tattoos on the Heart, to read about this man that sparked so much enthusiasm in my fellow friend, who now sadly is again incarcerated for home invasion. I have to confess that I have some [inaudible 00:08:48] against Jesuits in the United States, well not only in the United States. I was caught in the black and white mindset, or prestigious academics supporting well established universities and education centers, or troublemakers sent to the rural South, former third world, unsuitable neither here nor there. All of them were bearing the benefit of the doubt of their good intentions. That is also a Jesuit rule. My mindset was completely teared down when I read his book. I discovered in the pages of Tattoos on the Heart a man able to open up possibilities and get rid of conflict and violence through his fierce appropriation of the reality that surrounds him. His experience brought myself from a space of opposites and frustration to a space of hope. According to his website, Father Greg [00:10:00] was born in Los Angeles, one of eight children.