This is the VOA Special English Education Report.
这里是美国之音慢速英语教育报道。
For years, the Catholic Church in America has struggled to find new clergy. The average age of priests and nuns is seventy and rising. But some Catholic orders are having more success than others.
多年来，美国天主教会一直在努力寻找新的神职人员。神父和修女们的平均年龄已经到了70岁且不断上升。但部分天主教修道会获得了比其他修道会更大的成功。
The Dominican Sisters of Saint Cecilia are mainly a teaching order. They are based at a convent in Nashville, Tennessee. And they just celebrated their one hundred fiftieth year.
圣·塞西莉亚（Saint Cecilia）多明我修女会（The Dominican Sisters）是一个教职类修道会，位于田纳西州纳什维尔市的一家修道院内。她们刚刚完成150周年庆祝。
The sisters are active across the United States and in Australia. There, they teach more than thirteen thousand students in thirty-four schools.
该修女会在美国和澳洲各地非常活跃，她们在34所学校里教授超过1.3万名学生.
Today, Saint Cecilia's has its largest number of postulants in many years. A postulant is a candidate for admission into a religious order.
今天，圣·塞西莉亚修女会的见习神职人员的人数达到了多年来的最高水平。见习神职人员是指宗教修道会的候选人。
Sister Catherine Marie, a spokeswoman, says the current group of first-year students represents ten percent of the whole order.
作为发言人的凯瑟琳·玛丽修女表示，当前第1年的见习神职人员占到了修道会全部人员的10%。
SISTER CATHERINE MARIE: "There are two hundred seventy of us and our growth of late has been rather extensive. This year we had twenty-seven young women enter. Last year, it was twenty-three. Great blessings to us."
凯瑟琳修女：“我们有270人，并且最近增长非常快。今年我们有27名年轻女性新加入。去年有23人。这是我们的福音。”
Nearly one-third of the women in the order are under thirty.
该修道会近1/3的修女年龄都在30岁以下。
Sister Catherine says she thinks these young women are looking deeper into their faith in reaction to changes in society.
凯瑟琳修女称，这些年轻女性寻求加深信仰以应对社会变迁。
Participation in organized religion is falling among Americans under age thirty. That was the finding of a national survey last year by the Pew Research Center.
30岁以下美国人中，参与有组织宗教的人数正在下滑。这是皮尤研究中心(Pew Research Centre)去年一项全国性调查的结果。
A different group, the National Opinion Research Center, recently found that seventeen percent of Americans do not identify with any faith. And another poll found that this was true of almost twenty-five percent of first-year university students.
另一个调查组织，美国民意研究中心近期发现，17%的美国人不认同任何信仰。而另一个调查显示，这类人群在美国大学一年级学生中占到了近25%。
Sister Kelly Edmunds is a first-year postulant at Saint Cecilia's. She says she came to the order out of a desire to serve others. She had seen Dominican sisters serving at the University of Sydney.
凯利·埃德蒙兹修女是圣·塞西莉亚修女会第1年的见习修女。她表示加入修道会是出于服务他人的愿望。她曾看到多明我修女会在悉尼大学服务。
SISTER KELLY: "Just to watch them, walking down the main boulevard of campus wearing their habits -- it was just such a powerful witness. I had friends in engineering who were, like, they knew I was Catholic so they would say to me ‘Who are these nuns on campus?' And so it was a really great witness to me of the power of religious life."
凯莉修女：“我看到她们穿着宗教服饰行走在校园的林荫大道--这是多么有力的一次见证。我有些朋友读工程，她们知道我是天主教徒，于是对我说，‘走在校园里的修女是谁？，对我来说，这是宗教生活力量的伟大见证。”
Sister Victoria Marie is in her second year. She came to the convent with a degree in civil engineering. She says she had discovered that people were more interesting to her than roads or bridges.
维多利亚·玛丽修女是第2年的见习修女，她来到修道院的时候已经获得了土木工程学位。她表示，相对于路或桥，人们对她而言更有意义。
SISTER VICTORIA: "So it was a big shift in my life to go from utility to relationship, from ‘What am I going to do? ' to ‘Who am I going to be for the Lord?' "
维多利亚修女：“我的生活发生了重大转变，从公共设施（指路桥）转向人际关系。从‘我要做什么？’转向‘为了主，我要怎么做？’
A postulant's day includes work, study and prayer.
一个见习神职人员的一天包括工作、学习和祈祷。
Sister Victoria says it requires a lot of energy.
维多利亚修女说这需要很大精力。
SISTER VICTORIA: "For a couple weeks after I entered, I thought, ‘I just want to lay on the couch for the day, and I don't think they do that here, you know.'"
维多利亚修女：“我加入教会几个星期后，我曾想，'我只想整日躺在沙发上，你知道，他们不会那样做。'
But Sister Kelly says she was surprised by how much time she has gotten to simply enjoy life.
但凯莉修女称，她为获得如此多的单纯享受生活的时间而惊喜。
SISTER KELLY: "There have been a lot of fun moments just to be outside and enjoy the beauty of the world and creation."
凯莉修女：“仅仅走出门来，欣赏世界之美、创造之美，我就拥有了许多美妙的时刻。”