A local name known especially among East Valley Catholics now has an additional national title.
When he’s not coordinating parish efforts as pastoral associate at St. Andrew the Apostle Parish in Chandler, spearheading its new evangelization efforts or strengthening the domestic Church at home or through City of the Lord Catholic Charismatic Covenant Community in Tempe, Bill Marcotte will spend the next three years supporting resource and personnel matters as one of 11 members on the National Service Committee for Catholic Charismatic Renewal. His elected term took effect June 1.
Marcotte, who also spent more than five years as diocesan director of youth and young adults for the Diocese of Phoenix, is one of two new members to the National Service Committee. The group is charged with ensuring the gifts of the Holy Spirit are present in the Church.
Members do so through prayer, discussion and discernment. Marcotte’s subcommittee work on outreach, pilgrimage and social media will support Renewal’s priorities. Marcotte, who as founder and executive director of Youth Arise North America mobilized and engaged the youth of the Church, will also consult with the young adult committee.
“The engagement of young adults is one of the highest priorities of the NSC,” Marcotte wrote The Catholic Sun from his Chandler office that overlooks the parish’s teen center. “A strategy is now in the early stages on how to connect young adults who are in the renewal and to host particular events and seminars that will lead young adults into a spirit-filled encounter with Jesus that will help them grow as disciples.”
Leading young adults to a personal encounter with Jesus is one of Marcotte’s strengths as a Catholic man, said Peter Poppleton, a member of City of the Lord.
He has known Marcotte for at least 25 years including the last three while living in Arizona. His son was among the first to go through the school of evangelization via Youth Arise North America. He said youth who went through that were truly transformed.
“It’s not just an encounter. It’s followed up with good formation in the faith,” Poppleton said, noting Marcotte’s Master of Theology from the University of San Francisco with an emphasis in scripture.
Marcotte himself became involved with what is now Catholic Charismatic Renewal as a young adult. He fell in love with Scripture after joining a Protestant friend for a Bible study and afterwards having the guest speaker and others pray over him while invoking the Holy Spirit.
Not much later, Macrotte ran into someone who introduced him to a Catholic Covenant community and has been active since 1982.
“Having experienced an encounter with Jesus and the Holy Spirit in that college Bible study, I knew I needed a group of people, committed Catholics in particular, to help me stay on the right track in my desire to grow as a disciple of our Lord,” Marcotte said. “Left to my own, without the formation, support and accountability of men and the holy families I have come to know, I would have fallen away form Jesus and His Church many years ago. Even today, our Lord has shown me well enough, that this could still happen to me.”
Now it’s not just that first personal encounter with Jesus, but a sustained one that Marcotte will help oversee through Catholic Charismatic Renewal at the national level as Poppleton and other City of the Lord members put it, to raise up “radical adult disciples.”
