In 1986, Gregory Boyle, a native Angeleno and recently ordained Jesuit priest, returned from a transformative year working with the poor in Bolivia to become the pastor of Dolores Mission Church in Boyle Heights, the poorest Catholic parish in Los Angeles at the time. Located amidst Aliso Village and Pico Gardens, then the largest public housing west of the Mississippi River with the highest concentration of gang activity in a city that was the gang capital of the nation.
