Gaudium Award 2019
This year's honorees include:
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Greg Boyle
Gregory Joseph Boyle, native of Los Angeles, entered the Society of Jesus in 1972 and was ordained a Catholic priest in 1984. Holding degrees in English and Theology, Father Greg spent a year working and living in base communities in Cochabamba, Bolivia.Returning to become the pastor of the then poorest Catholic Church in Los Angeles, Dolores Mission Church, he along with the parish and local community began to address the escalating problems and unmet needs of gang involved youth.
Out of this, Greg became the founder of Homeboy Industries, the largest gang intervention, rehabilitation, and re-entry program in the world.
Since 1988, Homeboy Industries employs and trains former gang members in a range of social enterprises, as well as provides critical services to thousands of men and women who walk through its doors every year seeking a better life.
Father Boyle is the author of the 2010 New York Times-bestseller Tattoos on the Heart: The Power of Boundless Compassion. His most recent book, Barking to the Choir: The Power of Radical Kinship, published in 2017, became a Los Angeles best seller.
He has received the California Peace Prize and been inducted into the California Hall of Fame. Named Humanitarian of the Year by Bon Appetit magazine and the James Beard Foundation, Father Greg was named a Champion of Change by the White House in 2014. He received the University of Notre Dame’s 2017 Laetare Medal, the oldest honor given to American Catholics. (www.homeboyindustries.org)
Joyce Breach
Born in Alameda, California, raised in Kansas City, Missouri, settled in Pittsburgh, Pa, Joyce Breach has been called a singer’s singer, a jazz vocalist without peer and an accomplished, sophisticated interpreter of the classic American popular song.
Having been influenced by Rosemary Clooney, Sarah Vaughn, Peggy Lee and Blossom Dearie, Joyce’s vocals have been described as everything from peachy to warm honey. Rex Reed calls her a velvet-voiced singer.
Coming to prominence in the 1980’s with a dedicated following in Pittsburgh, she relocated to New York where she developed even more loyal audiences and greater reviews. Although jazz and supper clubs from New York to San Francisco to London are her best known haunts, Joyce has recorded extensively albums with Richard Rodney Bennett, Billy Roy, Keith Ingham. Her three album tribute to the great Mabel Mercer is an Audiophile collectible.
Stephen Holden writing in the New York Times said of her: Joyce is the quintessential keeper of the flame of an intimate nightclub tradition…there is not a pretentious or self-pitying phrase in her.
Joyce has received a MAC award for Best Jazz Performer, a Bistro Award for Best CD and the Mabel Mercer Foundation’s Cabaret Classic Award.
Perhaps a Village Voice critic described Joyce’s voice best as “scotch neat”.
James and Libby Ryan
For more than thirty years, Jimmy and Libby Ryan have been active participants and leaders in the Oratory and its related endeavors. Having met at Cornell Business School, the Ryans married soon after and moved to Park Slope in 1980.Their sons, Michael and Joseph, have grown from infancy to manhood within that neighborhood and our faith community.
A native of Binghamton, New York, Libby currently serves on the Board of the Greenpoint Manufacture and Design Center and the Prospect Park Alliance. Her expertise and advice in the field of real estate has benefited the 109-111 Boniface Redevelopment Committee. Perhaps more importantly, many of her fellow congregants and neighbors have successfully relied on her guidance and help with the sale of their precious commodities, their homes.
Bronx born, Jimmy Ryan has been involved in Oratory service as a Trustee at our foundational site of the Cathedral-Basilica of St. James and further served as a Council member in the Oratory’s permanent home on Willoughby Street. As a Financial Advisor at Merrill Lynch, he has become a leading advocate and guide for responsible, faith consistent investments not only for our community but with many faith communities with national ministries. Having served for 12 years on the Board of one of our principal Breukelein beneficiaries, Nazareth Housing, Jimmy is currently a board member of CHIPS soup kitchen in Park Slope.