Charles J. O'Byrne | |
Birth Date: | 1959 |
Birth Place: | Manhattan, New York |
Residence: | Manhattan, New York |
Office: | Secretary to the Governor of New York |
Term Start: | March 17, 2008 |
Term End: | October 24, 2008 |
Predecessor: | Rich Baum |
Successor: | William J. Cunningham III |
Alma Mater: | Columbia University (B.A. '81) Columbia Law School (J.D. '84) Weston School of Theology (M.Div. '96, S.T.L. '96) |
Party: | Democratic |
Occupation: | Lawyer |
Charles J. O'Byrne (born 1959) is an American lawyer, former Jesuit priest, and former political staffer to Governor of New York David Paterson.[1] O'Byrne served as Secretary to the Governor—the highest unelected position in New York government[2] —during the Paterson administration.[3] He stepped down from that position in October 2008 after admitting to having failed to pay five years' worth of taxes.[4]
O'Byrne previously served as Chief of Staff to Paterson when Paterson served as a member of the New York State Senate and as Lieutenant Governor of New York.[5] He also worked as a speechwriter for Howard Dean's 2004 presidential campaign. Prior to entering politics, O'Byrne practiced law and was a member of the Society of Jesus for 12 years[6] before departing his order and authoring a controversial 2002 article about Catholic priests and seminarians.
O'Byrne was born into an Irish Catholic family in New York City.[7] His father was a teacher and then a principal in New York public schools, and his mother was a psychologist.[8] O'Byrne graduated from Red Bank Catholic High School in New Jersey in 1977.[8]
O'Byrne attended Columbia University and graduated summa cum laude in 1981, majoring in history with a concentration in the Medieval and Renaissance periods.[9] During college, he took a summer job in the New Jersey Attorney General's office, and at 22, became acting superintendent of elections and acting commissioner of registration in Monmouth County.[8] He went on to Columbia Law School, graduating with a J.D. in 1984.[9] At Columbia, O'Byrne became close friends with Stephen Smith Jr., a member of the Kennedy family.[9] After law school, he worked as a corporate litigator at the Manhattan office of Rosenman & Colin LLP.[7]
O'Byrne left corporate law for a vocation to the priesthood in 1989 and attended Saint John Neumann Residence and Hall, a preparatory school for seminarians under the Archdiocese of New York.[8] O'Byrne was later admitted into Saint Andrew Hall, the Jesuit Novitiate in Syracuse for his primary formation as a Jesuit. He professed his vows as a Jesuit at the LeMoyne College Chapel in Syracuse, New York in 1991[6] and completed his philosophy studies at Loyola University Chicago.[8] O'Byrne went on to seminary at Weston Jesuit School of Theology in Cambridge, Massachusetts in 1994[8] and received two master's degrees.[9] During his studies in Cambridge, he acted as Harvard Law School's chaplain and worked as a teaching fellow at Harvard University with Robert Coles, the Pulitzer-prize winning author.[8] In 1996, O'Byrne was ordained as a priest.[8] He received a voluntary Decree of Dismissal from the Society of Jesus in 2002 when his superiors determined that he no longer wished to remain in the Order.[6]
A friend of the Kennedy family, O'Byrne acted as a spiritual adviser during the 1991 rape trial of Stephen Smith's brother, William Kennedy Smith,[9] and officiated at the marriage of John F. Kennedy Jr. and Carolyn Bessette in 1996.[7] [10] In 1999, he presided over the funeral of Kennedy and Bessette in New York City after they died in a plane crash.[11] As of 2008, he was a trustee of the Jean K. Smith Trust, the Kennedy Smith Foundation and the Smith Family Trust. In a 2006 financial disclosure, he listed gifts in excess of $1,000 and trustee commissions from members of the Smith family.[9]
See also: Criticism of the Catholic Church, Homosexuality in the Roman Catholic priesthood, Homosexuality and Roman Catholicism and 2005 Vatican instruction on homosexuals in the priesthood. O'Byrne authored "Sex & Sexuality: One Man's Story About Religious Life and What Seminaries Really Teach About Sex", a controversial September 2002 article in Playboy magazine that alleged hypocrisy and sexual dysfunction in the Catholic Church.[9] [12] The article caused some controversy, portraying O'Byrne's fellow seminarians as men who entered the religious life with "little or no sexual experience"[13] who made up for lost time. O'Byrne asserted that there was "sex all around me, including relationships between Jesuits."[12] He also asserted that there was a prevalence of priests who held an unnatural interest in young male parishioners.[9]
O'Byrne, who is openly gay,[9] [6] later left the Catholic Church and became a practicing Episcopalian.[9]
In 2003, O'Byrne joined Howard Dean's presidential campaign as Policy Director for New York, and was then hired as a speechwriter.[9] After Dean dropped out of the race, O'Byrne went to work for State Senate Minority Leader David Paterson as a speechwriter and policy analyst.[8] In 2006, O'Byrne became Paterson's Chief of Staff.[9]
O'Byrne maintained his position as Chief of Staff when Paterson was elected Lieutenant Governor of New York, and was elevated to Secretary to the Governor (the functional equivalent of a Chief of Staff) when Paterson was sworn in as Governor in March 2008 following the resignation of Eliot Spitzer.[14] O'Byrne was variously described as Paterson's "quarterback", "gatekeeper", "alter ego", "confidant", and "enforcer", and as "the glue that held the administration together".[3] O'Byrne was responsible for hiring Christopher O. Ward as Executive Director of the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey.[15]
On October 24, 2008, O'Byrne resigned from his post[4] following the revelation that he owed nearly $300,000 in back taxes.[3] O'Byrne admitted to having failed to pay taxes for five years.[4] After O'Byrne's unpaid taxes became public knowledge, he contended that his failure to pay was caused by depression.[16] In an interview, O'Byrne's psychiatrist, Dr. Howard Kremen, said he had treated O'Byrne for depression from 2001 through 2006 and said he attributed Mr. O'Byrne's tax problems to his condition.[17] [18]
Since 2012, O'Byrne has served as Executive Vice President for Policy at Related Cos, where he focuses on government relations with Washington DC, Albany, and City Hall.[19]
In 2022, New York City Mayor Eric Adams mentioned O'Byrne as a member of his kitchen cabinet.[20] [21] [22]
O'Byrne is also known as an advocate for LGBTQ+ advancement in New York. In 2021, he was ranked #11 on the City&State of NY’s "Pride Power 50,"[23] and was listed among Politics NY’s "LGBTQ+ Power Players of 2023."[24]