The 2020 Ambassador Peace Award will be presented to Rev. Gregory Boyle by the Norman Miller Center for Peace, Justice & Public Understanding at St. Norbert College on Tuesday, Oct. 27. 

The event, which will take place at 7 p.m., will be virtual and free for anyone to attend, according to a press release from St. Norbert College. Register for the event here. 

During the even, Boyle will give his lecture, "The Whole Language: The Power of Extravagant Tenderness."

"A native Angeleno and Jesuit priest, from 1986 to 1992 Boyle served as pastor of Dolores Mission Church in Boyle Heights, then the poorest Catholic parish in Los Angeles that also had the highest concentration of gang activity in the city. Boyle witnessed the devastating impact of gang violence on his community during the so-called “decade of death” that began in the late 1980s and peaked at 1,000 gang-related killings in 1992. In the face of law enforcement tactics and criminal-justice policies of suppression and mass incarceration as the means to end gang violence, he and parish and community members adopted what was a radical approach at the time: Treat gang members as human beings," the college said in the press release.