Here are five things to know ahead of the traditional Thanksgiving Day football clash between Baltimore-area Catholic schools Calvert Hall Cardinals and Loyola Blakefield Dons.

A 10 a.m. funeral Mass will be offered for Paulist Father John E. Lynch Jr. Dec. 10 in the Crypt Church of the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception in Washington, D.C. Father Lynch died Nov. 15. He was 101.

Mercy’s Centering Pregnancy program opened at its downtown Baltimore campus about three years ago to combine the health care, interactive learning and community building needed to combat low birth weight and pre-term delivery for women at risk, especially Black moms in underserved areas. 

Mercy High School freshman Mia Smothers has been chosen to ask a question of Pope Leo XIV during the National Catholic Youth Conference in Indianapolis, a four-day gathering of 15,000 young Catholics from across the country, running Nov. 20-23.

The annual Ignatian Family Teach-in for Justice, which focuses on social justice and issue advocacy for Catholic high school and college students, drew about 1,800 participants to an Arlington, Va., hotel Nov. 15-16.

Catholic Review Radio Managing Editor George Matysek talks with Marion Amberg, author of “Incredible Catholic America: Smallest, Tallest, Oldest, Oddest,” a fascinating collection of more than 300 stories about the people, places, and traditions that make Catholic America unique. She’s also the author of two award-winning Catholic travel books and a journalist whose work appears in more than 100 markets nationwide.

Cardinal Edwin F. O’Brien and Monsignor Richard Tillman were ordained in 1965. They, and several other priests marking milestone jubilees, were honored at the annual Priests Fall Day of Prayer, Mass for Deceased Priests, and Celebration of Service, Nov. 17 at Church of the Resurrection in Ellicott City. 

For two Catholic parishioners who have used these relatively recent approaches to reduce their weight, the medication or surgery is just one part of life changes they discussed with the Catholic Review. 

“It’s highly offensive and disrespectful,” said Davis, a parishioner of St. Clement Mary Hofbauer in Rosedale, a worship site of St. Michael the Archangel in Overlea. “It’s totally misleading.”

Area Catholic nutrition operations have had to tune out the political chaos in order to focus on how to meet immediate needs.