[ti:More Young Women Find a Calling in Catholic Order]
[ar:Steve Ember]
[al:Education Report]
[by:www.21voa.com]
[00:00.00]This is the VOA Special English
[00:02.86]Education Report.
[00:04.99]For years, the Catholic Church
[00:07.36]in America has struggled
[00:09.14]to find new clergy.
[00:11.47]The average age of priests
[00:14.09]and nuns is seventy and rising.
[00:17.59]But some Catholic orders
[00:20.16]are having more success than others.
[00:22.94]The Dominican Sisters of Saint Cecilia
[00:26.78]are mainly a teaching order.
[00:29.47]They are based at a convent
[00:31.79]in Nashville, Tennessee.
[00:33.46]And they just celebrated
[00:35.59]their one hundred fiftieth year.
[00:38.21]The sisters are active
[00:40.59]across the United States
[00:42.26]and in Australia.
[00:43.72]There, they teach more than
[00:46.19]thirteen thousand students
[00:48.17]in thirty-four schools.
[00:50.70]Today, Saint Cecilia's has
[00:53.58]its largest number of postulants
[00:56.31]in many years.
[00:57.78]A postulant is a candidate
[01:00.76]for admission into a religious order.
[01:03.55]Sister Catherine Marie,
[01:05.96]a spokeswoman, says
[01:07.44]the current group of first-year students
[01:10.57]represents ten percent of the whole order.
[01:14.15]SISTER CATHERINE MARIE: "There are
[01:15.33]two hundred seventy of us
[01:16.28]and our growth of late
[01:19.67]has been rather extensive.
[01:21.65]This year we had twenty-seven
[01:23.15]young women enter.
[01:24.22]Last year, it was twenty-three.
[01:25.58]Great blessings to us."
[01:28.01]Nearly one-third of the women
[01:29.88]in the order are under thirty.
[01:31.95]Sister Catherine says
[01:34.03]she thinks these young women
[01:36.10]are looking deeper into their faith
[01:38.33]in reaction to changes in society.
[01:42.17]Participation in organized religion
[01:45.71]is falling among Americans
[01:47.89]under age thirty.
[01:49.76]That was the finding
[01:51.17]of a national survey last year
[01:54.06]by the Pew Research Center.
[01:56.54]A different group,
[01:58.71]the National Opinion Research Center,
[02:01.64]recently found that seventeen percent
[02:04.62]of Americans do not identify
[02:07.81]with any faith.
[02:09.73]And another poll found that
[02:12.20]this was true of almost twenty-five
[02:14.74]percent of first-year university students.
[02:19.09]Sister Kelly Edmunds
[02:21.76]is a first-year postulant
[02:23.69]at Saint Cecilia's.
[02:25.30]She says she came to the order out
[02:28.28]of a desire to serve others.
[02:30.30]She had seen Dominican sisters serving
[02:33.80]at the University of Sydney.
[02:35.92]SISTER KELLY: "Just to watch them,
[02:37.33]walking down the main boulevard
[02:38.80]of campus wearing their habits
[02:39.92]-- it was just such a powerful witness.
[02:42.24]I had friends in engineering who were,
[02:46.09]like, they knew I was Catholic
[02:47.29]so they would say to me
[02:48.65]¡®Who are these nuns on campus?'
[02:49.82]And so it was a really great witness
[02:53.21]to me of the power of religious life."
[02:56.19]Sister Victoria Marie
[02:58.16]is in her second year.
[02:59.97]She came to the convent
[03:01.75]with a degree in civil engineering.
[03:04.18]She says she had discovered
[03:06.66]that people were more interesting
[03:08.57]to her than roads or bridges.
[03:11.05]SISTER VICTORIA: "So it was a big shift
[03:12.57]in my life to go from utility
[03:15.29]to relationship,
[03:16.26]from ¡®What am I going to do? ' to
[03:18.02]¡®Who am I going to be for the Lord?' "
[03:20.15]A postulant's day
[03:21.76]includes work, study and prayer.
[03:25.00]Sister Victoria says
[03:27.02]it requires a lot of energy.
[03:29.30]SISTER VICTORIA: "For a couple weeks
[03:31.27]after I entered, I thought,
[03:33.19]¡®I just want to lay on the couch
[03:33.99]for the day, and I don't think
[03:35.47]they do that here, you know.'"
[03:36.88]But Sister Kelly says
[03:38.34]she was surprised by how much time
[03:41.43]she has gotten to simply enjoy life.
[03:44.82]SISTER KELLY: "There have been
[03:45.32]a lot of fun moments just
[03:46.29]to be outside and enjoy the beauty
[03:49.77]of the world and creation."
[03:52.61]And that's the VOA Special English
[03:55.63]Education Report.
[03:57.50]I'm Steve Ember.
END OF TRACK. "END OF TRACK." The two men bowed. "Whoever was that person you were talking to?" she enquired, as soon as they stood together. The took of triumph faded from her eyes, she had grown worn and weary. The roses were wilting on the walls, the lights were mostly down now. Hetty, looking in to see if anything was wanted, found herself driven away almost fiercely. I only saw Master Jervie once when he called at tea time, The year 1747 was opened by measures of restriction. The House of Lords, offended at the publication of the proceedings of the trial of Lord Lovat, summoned the parties to their bar, committed them to prison, and refused to liberate them till they had pledged themselves not to repeat the offence, and had paid very heavy fees. The consequence of this was that the transactions of the Peers were almost entirely suppressed for nearly thirty years from this time, and we draw our knowledge of them chiefly from notes taken by Horace Walpole and Lord Chancellor Hardwicke. What is still more remarkable, the reports of the House of Commons, being taken by stealth, and on the merest sufferance, are of the most meagre kind, sometimes altogether wanting, and the speeches are given uniformly under fictitious names; for to have attributed to Pitt or Pelham their[112] speeches by name would have brought down on the printers the summary vengeance of the House. Many of the members complained bitterly of this breach of the privileges of Parliament, and of "being put into print by low fellows"; but Pelham had the sense to tolerate them, saying, "Let them alone; they make better speeches for us than we can make for ourselves." Altogether, the House of Commons exhibited the most deplorable aspect that can be conceived. The Ministry had pursued Walpole's system of buying up opponents by place, or pension, or secret service money, till there was no life left in the House. Ministers passed their measures without troubling themselves to say much in their behalf; and the opposition dwindled to Sir John Hinde Cotton, now dismissed from office, and a feeble remnant of Jacobites raised but miserable resistance. In vain the Prince of Wales and the secret instigations of Bolingbroke and Doddington stimulated the spirit of discontent; both Houses had degenerated into most silent and insignificant arenas of very commonplace business. "It certainly will be. Miss Widgeon," answered Maria, with strictly "company manners." "One who has never had a brother exposed to the constant dangers of army life can hardly understand how glad we all feel to have Si snatched from the very jaws of death and brung back to us." "Just plug at 'em as you would at a crow, and then go on your way whistlin'?" persisted Harry. "Hurroo!" echoed Hennessey; "that's the ticket." "Come forward, keeper," continued the baron, "and state how these arrows came into your hands!" "Yes." HoMEJULIA¾©Ïã2018ÏÂÔØ
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