Remembering Father Philip Edelin
Often when I travel from my home to the Catholic Center I drive on Ashe Avenue. On that street was the home of the Edelens, a family that occupies an important place in the history of Sacred Heart Cathedral and the Diocese of Raleigh.
The family moved to Raleigh from Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. They eventually had five sons. The eldest, Philip Barton Edelen, was born in Harrisburg on June 29, 1913, but the family moved when he was still a small child. At that time there were only two churches in Raleigh. The Parish church was Sacred Heart, the other church was the chapel at the Orphanage two miles away. The Centennial Campus of North Carolina State University now occupies the land on which the chapel and Orphanage stood, except for the land on which the Catholic Center and the buildings of the old Cardinal Gibbons High School stand today.
Philip attended grammar and high school at Sacred Heart Cathedral School. He then entered Mount St. Mary College and Seminary in Emmitsburg, Maryland. He was the first member of Sacred Heart Cathedral Parish to be ordained a priest. After ordination he was assigned to St. Anthony of Padua Parish in Southern Pines, and later to Blessed Sacrament in Burlington.
When World War II started he volunteered as a Chaplain and was sent to Europe. While ministering to troops in the 1944 Normandy Invasion, he was struck in the head by shrapnel from an exploding mortar shell. He died four hours later, on June 10th, and was buried there in Normandy. Fr. Edelen’s younger brother, Neil, was also killed in the war.
Fr. Edelen was the only priest from our Diocese who died in the war. For years his grave was tended by the Contesse d’Ursely with the help of her daughters. The noble lady kept in touch with Fr. Edelen’s mother for a number of years.
You can find this information and more at the Catholic Center chapel, which is dedicated to Fr. Edelen. A cabinet at the entrance to the chapel contains his Crucifix, his Confessional Stole, and the Office of the Blessed Virgin Mary which he carried with him and prayed daily. There is also the American Flag which covered Fr. Edelen’s coffin at his burial.
Msgr. Thomas P. Hadden