The Roman Catholic priest who's led downtown Charleston's Basilica of the Co-Cathedral of the Sacred Heart for about 35 years, and significantly expanded the real estate footprint of his parish during that time, is retiring.
Since he became rector of Sacred Heart in 1980, Monsignor Edward Sadie, 85 - whom former Pope Benedict XVI named an Apostolic Protonotary, the highest rank of monsignor, in 2013 - has also been head of both Charleston Catholic High and Sacred Heart Grade schools, which are on opposite sides of the Charleston church.
He was ordained as a priest in 1957, and has spent more than a half-century with the Wheeling-Charleston diocese. He's also served on numerous Catholic committees and the boards of St. Francis Hospital and Catholic Charities West Virginia.
He said he'll give up all these positions in early June, when a new priest will likely be assigned rector of Sacred Heart, a position he said entails "pretty much running the place."
"All the financial decisions, all the decisions on the two schools, all the decisions on acquiring or selling property, as people like to talk about." Sadie said, with a laugh.
He said priests technically never retire from the priesthood, and he'll still be available to fill in for the new rector when needed. He'll likely move from the church building where he and two priests live, to a house in Kanawha City he bought for his late mother.
His current home, which also has church offices and the church technology center in the bottom, is one of the acquisitions he worked on: the former Cenacle House on Virginia Street, which used to house the Catholic Cenacle sisters.
In an interview Wednesday with the Gazette-Mail, Sadie talked energetically about his past business deals, including a bidding contest in an auction he had with Lyell Clay, a late owner of the Charleston Daily Mail, in which he drove up Clay's purchase price by $60,000, going beyond the bid the diocese had previously authorized. Clay, to Sadie's surprise, still later agreed to donate $300,000 to Sadie's addition to Charleston Catholic High School, the priest said.
In a 2012 article on the completion of the church's latest project - the $3.5 million Sacred Heart Pavilion, a "state-of-the-art day care center and gymnasium" near the church that allowed it to drop the minimum age of the kids it serves from 3-year-olds to 6-week-olds - the Charleston Gazette reported Sadie had, in total, acquired and developed about 15 downtown properties. On Wednesday, Sadie didn't downplay his real estate reputation.
"When I came here, the only parking we had was on the street, the meters," Sadie said. "... Parking is essential to the health of a parish church, and I think most churches realize this sooner or later, I realized it very soon.
"When I was appointed at Sacred Heart I said to the bishop at that time I said 'Bishop [Joseph] Hodges, Sacred Heart is landlocked, I'm gonna try to buy every piece of property I can hit with a rock.'"
He also said that, at the start, the only building where groups could meet was the elementary school. So he had to get more property.
"For those who are critical of that, I wish they would remember that all of the buildings I bought were boarded up," he said, noting, for example, the old Kanawha Valley Memorial Hospital building, which the parish largely demolished to make room for a parking lot and playground. He said that gave the school a "complete turnaround."
"I would say parking has been the key to Sacred Heart's success," he said. "We have people come to Sacred Heart from 40-something zip codes."
Some of his deals have brought controversy, like the Riverview Terrace Apartments senior living facility, which the Diocese of Wheeling-Charleston bought for $1.2 million in 1993 because, Sadie said, it'd be a way to keep aging parishioners in Charleston. A resident has sued the holding company for the apartments over increased fees and plans to turn the apartments into condominiums. Sadie said Wednesday he doesn't want to saddle his successor with the apartments, whose transition to condos should be complete over the next 12 months.
He said 1033 Quarrier Street is also now off the city's vacant properties list, and he hopes to have it open as a grade school expansion by Aug. 1.
But Sadie stressed that acquiring property - something that must be signed off on by the bishop - isn't the most important thing he's done, noting the people he's baptized and the other services he's provided.
"For 34 years, I've shared the scriptures every day, every single day," he said.
Though he said he's been blessed with good health, Sadie noted he has diabetes and knee problems and, at 85, "you get tired."
He said he sent Wheeling-Charleston Bishop Michael Bransfield a letter a couple weeks ago saying he's ready to retire - 15 years after priests' optional retirement age, and a decade after the age at which he was required to submit a retirement petition, on which Sadie then wrote he was "more than willing" to continue serving.
"I think it's time for someone else to have all the fun I've been having," he said.
Sadie, a Parkersburg native whose father was a non-English-speaking Syrian immigrant, served from 1957-63 as associate pastor of St. Mary Church and Mission in Blacksburg, Virginia, and chaplain at Radford College, Virginia, and the Virginia Tech.
He returned to work in West Virginia in 1963, and until 1969 was vice rector, treasurer and an instructor at St. Joseph Preparatory Seminary in Vienna. From 1969-80, he was the pastor of Kanawha City's St. Agnes parish, and he became rector of Sacred Heart in 1980. In a statement on his retirement, the diocese credited Sadie with "saving the Catholic elementary and high school from financial ruin and extending their programs, beautifying the Co-Cathedral and enlarging it, fostering the devout life, and building a noble campus around Sacred Heart Co-Cathedral."
It also called Sadie "instrumental in having Sacred Heart Co-Cathedral raised to the status of a minor basilica in 2009." Sadie said the basilica title is a "distinctive honor," which he believes belongs to fewer than 90 of the nation's 19,000 Roman Catholic churches.
Aside from his Catholic credentials, Sadie has been involved in multiple interfaith events with Jewish, Muslim and other religious leaders. He also touted the high number of non-Catholics who send their kids to his schools.
"The people of our country have to learn to live together and even pray together even though they're different, and here at Sacred Heart, we have that," he said.
Reach Ryan Quinn at, ryan.quinn@wvgazettemail.com, 304-348-1254 or follow @RyanEQuinn on Twitter.