Key aide tightens ties to O'Malley

The former dean of Harvard Divinity School, cementing his role as one of the closest advisers to Cardinal Sean P. O'Malley, is leaving his post as president of Catholic Charities of Boston so he can spend more time at the chancery.

The Rev. J. Bryan Hehir will continue to serve as a secretary in O'Malley's cabinet, and as a professor at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government, but his primary responsibility will be to advise O'Malley on a variety of public policy matters, including the archdiocese's relationship with the Legislature, its ownership of a struggling hospital chain, and the future of its school system. Hehir also will continue to serve as a primary troubleshooter for O'Malley.

Church officials regard Hehir as a pragmatist who is valuable to O'Malley because of his analytical and negotiating skills. Hehir has been an advocate of greater lay involvement in church adminis tration, declaring in 2003, "We've got to treat adults as adults in the church."

Hehir, president of Catholic Charities since 2004, will be succeeded by one of his former students, Tiziana Dearing, who since 2003 has been the executive director of Harvard's Hauser Center for Nonprofit Organizations. She will be the first woman to head the organization.

Dearing, 36, a former management consultant, lists among her research interests at Harvard "the functioning and governance of the Catholic Church as a nonprofit organization."

"I've been working with nonprofits and made a very conscious choice that that's where I wanted to spend my life," Dearing said. " That was largely due to feeling called to the social mission of the church. I feel a strong sense of calling to take the job, and I think it's because my call to nonprofits in general came from my faith. It came from being influenced by economic justice for all, and it came from a sense that service needs to be a core part of who you are."

During Hehir's tenure, Catholic Charities has been going through a challenging period.

Catholic Charities has a $38 million budget and serves 200,000 people each year. But it was beset by controversy over its decision to stop providing adoption services instead of complying with a state law that requires it to accept gays and lesbians as adoptive parents. And the organization has been trying to concentrate on a few needy populations: children, the poor, and immigrants.

Hehir, a 66-year-old Wellesley resident (he lives at a parish rectory), is among the most highly regarded of Boston priests. In addition to serving as the only Catholic priest ever to head Harvard Divinity School, he has been a professor at Georgetown, was the president of Catholic Charities USA, was a longtime volunteer for Catholic Relief Services, and worked for years as a key staff member at the National Conference of Catholic Bishops, where he was the architect of an influential document on nuclear weapons.

He has won dozens of honorary degrees, and in 1984 was awarded a so-called genius grant from the MacArthur Foundation.

But Hehir has been viewed with suspicion by conservatives, including some bloggers who have fretted about his influence on O'Malley. O'Malley's predecessor, Cardinal Bernard F. Law, was so unhappy with Hehir's association with Harvard's liberal divinity school that he asked him to leave the post, and some conservatives criticized Hehir for his 2005 decision to allow Catholic Charities to honor Mayor Thomas M. Menino, who supports abortion rights.

Hehir's title will be secretary for social services, a position he already holds, and he will work on the third floor of the chancery. He joins the vicar general, the Rev. Richard M. Erikson, and the chancellor, James P. McDonough, in O'Malley's inner circle.

Hehir will also continue to teach three courses a year at Harvard as professor of the practice of religion and public life.

Hehir said he has a good relationship with the cardinal, "and I'm happy to work for him."

He said of his role that "the amount of things that I've been doing had been growing on an ad hoc basis." His portfolio includes broad issues such as healthcare, education, and legislative matters, but he has also played a role in several of the public controversies facing the archdiocese.

For example, when O'Malley triggered a crisis with his decision to cancel a kindergarten graduation in Brighton to prevent a protest by parents of the school's planned closing, O'Malley brought Hehir in to negotiate with furious neighbors and officials.

Dearing, a Bedford resident, has worked with Hehir at the Kennedy School and at Catholic Relief Services.

Michael Paulson can be reached at mpaulson@globe.com.