Delegations from all over the world visit Homeboy Industries and scratch their heads as we tell them of our difficulty in placing our people in jobs after their time with us. Americans' seeming refusal to believe in a person's ability to redeem himself strikes these folks as foreign indeed.

I have a lot of people in my life, and I think there's something key: the thing that leads to intimacy and relationship and connection is tenderness.

Richard Rohr is a theologian that I read.

I founded Homeboy Industries in 1988 after I buried my first young person killed in our streets because of gang violence.

For over twenty years, Homeboy Industries has chosen to stand with those on the margins and those whose burdens are more than they can bear; it stands with the poor and the powerless, with the easily-despised and the readily-left out.

I spent the summers of 1984 and 1985 as an associate pastor at Dolores Mission Church, the poorest parish in the Los Angeles archdiocese. In 1986, I became pastor of the church.

We can't get at crime unless we know what language it speaks. Otherwise, we are just suppressing the cough, not curing the disease.

There is no such thing as a bad cop, only disturbing and dominant cop thinking that will invariably lead to excessive force and tragic outcomes.

I'm not going to be here forever. I don't plan on going anywhere, but I don't know anybody for whom death is an exception.

The idea that any law enforcement agency or person would ever know these gang members better than Homeboy Industries is impossible.

Me wanting a gang member to have a different life would never be the same as that gang member wanting to have one.

I don't believe in mistakes. Everything belongs, and, as the homies say, 'It's all good.'

I feel called to be faithful.

The business of second chances is everybody's business.

Most employers just aren't willing to look beyond the dumbest or worst thing someone has done.

We ought not to demonize a single gang member, and we ought not to romanticize a single gang.

I know two L.A.s. Half my life was around the house my folks had for 46 years at 3rd and Norton. The other half was in Boyle Heights on the Eastside, working with gang members.

I love movies.

The poor evangelize you about what's important and what is the Gospel, and that that's where the joy is.

Businesses have come and gone at Homeboy Industries. We have had starts and stops, but anything worth doing is worth failing at. We started Homeboy Plumbing. That didn't go so well. Who knew? People didn't want gang members in their homes. I just didn't see that coming.

My church is in the detention facilities where I preside and celebrate the Eucharist. To me that's the church. That's the people of God.

The Church should say, 'I'm frightened that women will be ordained;' that's honest, say that. But don't say, 'It's a grave sin,' because that's nonsense.

Homeboy Bakery is an alternative to kids who have found themselves, regrettably, in gangs and want to redirect their lives.

I'm not opposed to success.