photo by: Joselyn King

Msgr. Jeremiah McSweeney sits down for dinner during his Golden Jubilee celebration at St. Michael Catholic Church in Woodsdale.

The Ireland-born Rev. Monsignor Jeremiah F. McSweeney has been a priest for more than 50 years, and he has spent his entire career serving Catholics in West Virginia.

On Thursday, a Golden Jubilee Celebration honoring McSweeney’s tenure took place at St. Michael Catholic Church in Woodsdale.

He was ordained June 17, 1972, at St. John the Baptist Church in Kinsale in County Cork in Ireland.

From there, life and God’s work brought him to the Diocese of Wheeling-Charleston — where he has stayed for more than half a century.

He has been assigned to churches in Follansbee, Beckley, Mullens, Ronceverte, Oak Hill, Cheat Lake, Weston and Wheeling during his tenure, according to the Most Rev. Mark Brennan, Bishop of the Diocese of Wheeling-Charleston. McSweeney retired in 2016, but since then has filled in at churches throughout the diocese where needed.

“You can’t be here for 50 years without loving the state,” McSweeney said in an Irish accent unchanged by his time in the Mountain State. “It is a beautiful state with beautiful people, and they believe in Jesus Christ.

“A lot of them are not Catholic, but they are other denominations.”

McSweeney said he has often served on ministerial associations where he has had the opportunity with other religious leaders. Among them, he said he became close friends of the late Rev. Robert Romick, who led the First Baptist Church in Wheeling for many years.

Brennan and 11 other local priests took part in the celebratory Mass for McSweeney at St. Michael Catholic Church. This was followed by dinner and reception in the nearby St. Michael Angelus Center gymnasium.

“Believe in Jesus Christ,” McSweeney said. “Love your neighbor as you love yourself, and love the Word (of God).”