A tough chart needn’t mean a bad outcome if a demanding lifestyle is chosen. Rescuing violent gang members certainly qualifies. Father Gregory Boyle runs the largest and most successful gang rehabilitation and re-entry program in the world in Los Angeles. His Homeboy Industries supports 10,000 men and women a year, who are working to overcome their pasts, find a new future, and break the inter-generational cycles of gang violence. He has just published a new book Barking To The Choir, a follow-up to his earlier bestseller Tattoos on the Heart. “Gang violence is about a lethal absence of hope,” he says. “Nobody has ever met a hopeful kid who joined a gang.”
Born 19 May 1945, one of eight children, was ordained as a Jesuit, and after a stint in Bolivia settled to work in LA.
He has a late Taurus Sun widely trine Jupiter; Mars in Aries trine Pluto, sextiling onto an innovative Uranus; and Mars opposition Neptune square Saturn and North Node in Cancer; and a Virgo Moon. His Mercury in stubborn Taurus also squares Pluto. Mars Pluto Uranus connected even by sextiles and trines is an explosive mix – and he said in his younger days he used to get very angry. His Mars square Saturn would also make him prone to erupt. But such a focal point Saturn does give – eventually – executive and organising ability, and self-discipline.
He’s had leukaemia for the past 14 years which makes his work even more laudable.
He’s got several well-aspected Harmonics, especially the 22H and obsessive-dream 11H; as well as the breakthrough/genius 13H; and the spiritual seeker 7H.
Historically the Jesuits had a terrible reputation but in more recent times they have been behind the promotion of liberation theology which emphasizes a concern for the liberation of the oppressed.