Revered devout taking religious education by Catholic (8)
I believe the answer is:
precious
'revered' is the definition.
(thesaurus)
'devout taking religious education by catholic' is the wordplay.
'devout' becomes 'pious' ('pious' can be a synonym of 'devout').
'taking' is an insertion indicator.
'religious education' becomes 're'.
'by' says to put letters next to each other.
'catholic' becomes 'c' (abbreviation as in RC for Roman Catholic).
're'+'c'='rec'
'pious' going around 'rec' is 'PRECIOUS'.
(Other definitions for precious that I've seen before include "Very dear" , "Valuable; the Ring, for Gollum (Tolkien)" , "as good as gold" , "Much loved" , "Valuable or dearly beloved" .)