John J. (Jack) Shea

"My interest has always been in how people integrate their deeper beliefs and values into their work and personal lives" says John J. (Jack) Shea, religious scholar, teacher and writer, who joins the Center staff this year as the Advocate Health Care Senior Scholar-in-Residence. Shea, who also serves as a research professor for the Institute of Pastoral Studies at Chicago's Loyola University, has been hard at work on Advocate 2000, a ground-breaking project which will shape the future of Advocate Health Care.

"Advocate 2000 is an attempt to formulate the faith-based, values-driven nature of Advocate Health Care," says Shea, "and to implement these values throughout the Advocate system." A 200-site, not-for-profit healthcare provider network including eight hospitals and more than 3,800 physicians, Advocate was formed in the recent merger of hospitals and sites of care affiliated with the United Church of Christ, the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, or no religious body at all. The Advocate 2000 team has been concentrating on a qualitative study of how faith and values work together in the day-to-day operations of Advocate Health Care.

Shea has also been involved in the Center's Retrieving Spiritual Traditions project, which brings the resources of major world religious traditions to bear on questions of aging in long-term care facilities. "My on-going concern is how professionals develop spiritually as they engage in the complex tasks of assisting people in their struggles for health," Shea says.

John Shea is the author of the recently published Gospel Light: Jesus' Stories for Spiritual Consciousness, and other books, including the well-known Stories of God and Stories of Faith, and numerous articles. He has taught theology at Mundelein Seminary, the University of Notre Dame, Loyola University, and Boston College.