ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Wednesday, June 26, 1996 TAG: 9606260002
SECTION: CURRENT PAGE: NRV-4 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
SOURCE: FRANCIS STEBBINS STAFF WRITER
Growing up in a Polish-American family in Detroit, Katy Scott had always been active in long-established Roman Catholic parishes. Now as she and her Virginia Tech professor husband, Dow, leave the New River Valley for Chicago this summer, she looks forward to a new life as a liberal Catholic activist.
"I have felt for about 10 years that God has called me to the Roman Catholic priesthood," Scott said. "Of course, that is not possible yet, but I plan to become active in Call to Action."
Call to Action is an organization dedicated to bringing about reform in the American church. It recently was attacked by the Catholic bishop in Lincoln, Neb.
Scott, a co-chair of the steering committee of the new Holy Spirit Catholic Church in Christiansburg, admits she has some regrets about the move. Being part of a parish from its birth has been exciting, she said. It taught her much about what's involved in starting a new church, adding to her considerable knowledge about Catholicism in America today.
She won't be around to see the new building her congregation will eventually occupy near Christiansburg High School. But she'll gladly leave the problems of building to a new committee, she said.
The Scotts have been part of New River Valley life for 17 years. They came to Blacksburg from Lansing, Mich., and are returning to the Great Lakes area partially to be nearer Katy's 81-year-old mother and other relatives.
Dow Scott will join the faculty of Loyola University in Chicago to start a new School of Labor and Industrial Relations. The Scotts' son, Jason, now at Villanova University, will become a student at the school where his father will teach. A daughter, Lisa Ryan, is married and lives in Tampa, Fla.
"Since the children are grown and Dow's not Catholic, I'll look for a parish with a strong peace advocacy stand, a contemporary liturgy and other people's children to work with," Katy Scott said. "I'll probably be a challenge there just like I've been here."
Friends of the Scotts, as well as Katy's pastor, the Rev. Louis Benoit, know her to be an energetic worker for people causes and not afraid to try new things.
Soon after the Scotts arrived in Blacksburg, the mother of two became co-chair of the New River Valley Hospice, then a new concept in caring for the terminally ill. Over the years she has helped ease the final weeks of more than 100 patients, she said.
Convinced that laypeople - women as well as men - must assume more responsibility for making the old denomination relevant to people today, Scott, 53, has been almost constantly educating herself as a Christian adult. Until her young adulthood, she noted, Catholics gave more of their attention to worship than to education in the faith.
Today, however, with an extreme shortage of priests, lay people are increasingly having to take on all but the most sacred task of consecrating the bread and wine for the Mass.
Scott began her Catholic adult education with a ministry formation course from the New Orleans Loyola University. Completing that in 1983, she entered into the new spiritual direction discipline, a program which trains laity to help others develop their relationship to God.
Spiritual direction, which Scott undertook ecumenically, brought her into contact with the Episcopal Education for Ministry seminary extension course for laity. A year later, she began leading a similar course for Radford and Pulaski laity known as The Word.
Finding the atmosphere of Catholic campus ministry more her style than the then-traditional approach of St. Mary's in Blacksburg, Scott also offered her teaching and administrative skills to St. Jude's in Radford until it relocated and received a new pastor.
Scott is pursuing a master's degree in pastoral studies, which she expects to complete next year. And with Chicago's many Catholic churches, who knows where that will lead?
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