CHARLESTON, W.Va. — Funeral services were held Friday in Charleston for Monsignor Edward Sadie, a former pastor and rector of the Basilica of the Co-Cathedral of the Sacred Heart, who died earlier this week.
The Diocese of Wheeling-Charleston Bishop Mark Brennan presided over the funeral while Rev. Casey Mahone gave the eulogy.
Mahone said Sadie was truly deserving of the title “Monsignor” after serving as a priest for more than 50 years.
“No body is more deserving of that title than you and I shall try to remember to call you Monsignor, but one thing in my life is certain. I have never been prouder to call any man ‘Father’,” he said.
Sadie died Sunday at the age of 93. His work included revitalizing Catholic schools like Charleston Catholic High School and enhancing the Catholic church’s presence in downtown Charleston.
Sadie served at the St. Joseph’s Seminary when it opened in 1963 until he transferred to Charleston in 1969. He became rector of the Co-Cathedral of the Sacred Heart in 1980 and also was in charge of the Catholic schools in Charleston.
Mahone said Sadie’s impact will live on.
“He was so much more than his accomplishments and so much more than his titles, well deserved, and too numerous to recount in this homily,” he said.
Sadie, a Parkersburg native, retired in 2016 after serving as a priest for 59 years. He was ordained as a priest in 1957 at St. Francis Xavier Catholic Church.
Mahone said he’ll always remember certain lines Sadie said to other priests.
“I’m sure all of his associates remember certain Sadie sayings, anecdotes that I remember, like a ‘priest should smell neither good nor bad’ and ‘you don’t train an associate, you adjust to an associate’,” he recalled.
Becoming a priest was always a passion of Sadie, Mahone said.
“I once asked him when he began to think about the priesthood. Like his goodness, that too was rooted in his childhood,” he said.
Sadie was scheduled to be buried Friday at Mount Carmel Cemetery in Parkersburg with his parents, according to the obituary at the Barlow Bonsall Funeral Home in Charleston.
In lieu of flowers or other acknowledgements, the family requests that donations be made to The Father Sadie Educational Fund, 1033 Virginia Street East, Charleston, WV 25301.