Photo Caption: Jackie Scott is a member of St. Matthew’s Parish in Champaign, where her husband is a permanent deacon.

CHAMPAIGN — It was her own search for a Catholic Bible study and the catechesis that she missed in the years after the Second Vatican Council that made Jackie Scott a passionate advocate for adult faith formation.

She has shared that passion on the parish level at St. Jude’s Church in Peoria for several years and is now bringing what she has learned to the parishes of the Champaign and Danville vicariates of the Diocese of Peoria as their new regional director of religious education. Her appointment was effective Sept. 1.

Scott succeeds Marc Cardaronella, director of religious education at Holy Cross Parish in Champaign. He had served as regional DRE since the position was established in 2006.

“I had worked with Jackie when she was over at St. Jude’s and she had done some really good things over there,” said Dr. Vincent McClean, director of the diocesan Office of Catechetics. “I thought she would be a very energetic and involved person to put into that Champaign and Danville region.”

While Scott has not worked with children in a faith formation program, her experience with adults gives her a good understanding of how to equip those who do, McClean added.

Scott recently relocated to Champaign with her husband, Dr. William S. Scott, who works at Carle Clinic. His specialty is occupational and environmental medicine.

A newly ordained permanent deacon for the Diocese of Peoria, Dr. Scott is assigned to St. Matthew’s Parish in Champaign where they are both active.

Those who are involved in passing on the faith in Catholic parishes and schools across central Illinois — and the rest of the United States — will be honored at Catechetical Sunday celebrations this weekend. The theme for this year’s observance is “Catechists and Teachers as Agents of the New Evangelization.”

OFFERING RESOURCES, SUPPORT
The Scotts met while she was studying fine arts at Rosemont College and he was attending Rosemont’s sister college, Villanova University. They married in 1987 and have two daughters: Sarah, who just graduated from Bradley University in Peoria, and Joella, who is a senior at Saint Louis University.

Jackie Scott discovered a passion for Scripture while the family was living in Oklahoma.

“It was a Protestant study, but I quickly became aware that I needed a Catholic Bible study,” she said.

She found what she was looking for in the tapes of Scott Hahn, a professor of theology and Scripture at Franciscan University of Steubenville and founder and director of the St. Paul Center for Biblical Theology. When the Scotts moved to Peoria, she got involved in Women Who Believe, a group that studied the Catechism of the Catholic Church, various papal documents, and eventually a Bible study written by Hahn and published through Catholic Scripture Study.

Scott became a leader in the group and then moved into adult faith formation and youth ministry at St. Jude’s Parish. When Father Tony Lee, pastor, wanted to separate the two he asked her to be on the search committee for a director of adult faith formation and eventually turned to her to fill the role.

“I felt like I was called to do that,” Scott said. “I felt like God had really prepared me to do that through all the experiences I had had years before.”

For her it’s not about teaching as much as facilitating knowledge for people who, like her, may not have had the best catechesis.

“How do you pass on something you didn’t have?” Scott said. “That’s why I’m committed to working with adults.”

She has already visited St. Patrick’s Church in Tolono to offer resources and support to Father John Cyr, pastor, and the catechists there as they build their religious education program, and knows there’s more to come.

“I look forward to working with the directors and coordinators of religious education in the parishes and the pastors,” Scott said. “I look forward to working with the parishes to meet the needs of the children in those parishes.”