Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, is used to addressing the country about steps to contain the coronavirus, but in mid-May he spoke directly to graduates of the nation’s 60 Jesuit high schools with words of encouragement and congratulations.

Around 1950, in Zanesville, Ohio, a young Patrick Flood’s Catholic grade school class watched a movie about persecuted Christians in the newly Communist countries of Eastern Europe. One, he remembers, was Cardinal Mindszenty, then the bishop of Esztergom, Hungary, and today a candidate for sainthood.

On May 16, the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception in Washington — the largest Catholic church in North America and one of the 10 largest churches in the world — marks the 100th anniversary of the blessing of the land on which it was built.

Philip Rivers said he fulfilled one childhood dream by playing quarterback in the NFL. He’ll soon fulfill another by coaching high school football. The 38-year-old Rivers was named head coach-in-waiting at St. Michael Catholic High School in Fairhope.

With schools closed and classes being taught online, families are having a tough enough time adapting to new routines and technologies during the ongoing pandemic. But for families of students with special needs, distance learning can be an even bigger hurdle.

Prayer is an inner desire to encounter God, Pope Francis said. Continuing his new series of talks on prayer during his weekly general audience May 13, the pope said that the longing expressed through prayer “is more than a need, more than a necessity.”