John L. Allen Jr.

John L. Allen Jr. (born 1965) is an American journalist serving as editor of the Catholic-oriented news website Crux, formerly hosted by The Boston Globe and currently produced in partnership with the Catholic fraternal organization the Knights of Columbus. Before moving to The Boston Globe when Crux was established in 2014, Allen worked for 16 years in Rome as a Vatican watcher, covering news about the Holy See and the Pope. During that time he was senior correspondent for the National Catholic Reporter and an analyst of Vatican affairs for CNN and NPR. He has been called "America’s leading Vaticanist."

Allen is also the author of several books about the Catholic Church. He has written two biographies of Pope Benedict XVI, the first one published in 2000 when the Pope was still a cardinal and later the first biography of him in English.

Biography

Allen grew up in Hays, Kansas. He graduated from Capuchin-founded Thomas More Prep-Marian High School in 1983. He received a bachelor's degree in philosophy from Fort Hays State University and a master's degree in religious studies from the University of Kansas. For several years, Allen taught journalism and oversaw the student-run newspaper, The Knight, at Notre Dame High School in Sherman Oaks, California.

During the coverage of the death of Pope John Paul II, Allen frequently appeared on CNN. He then became the Vatican analyst for CNN and NPR. He also delivers lectures discussing Vatican issues and his latest works.

On 5 November 2011, the University of St. Michael's College, an affiliate of the University of Toronto, awarded him an honorary degree of Doctor of Sacred Letters (D.S.Litt.). He has also received honorary doctorates from "Lewis University in Romeoville, Illinois; St. Michael's College in Colchester, Vermont; and the University of Dallas, Dallas, Texas."

In 2014, Allen took up a position as associate editor with the Boston Globe and helped to launch its website, Crux. In 2016 the Globe transferred ownership of the Crux website and its intellectual property to the Crux editors. With Allen as its editor the new Crux is an independent entity, currently backed financially by the Knights of Columbus.

Allen and his wife Shannon live in Denver, Colorado.

Publications

Allen writes regularly for Crux, and also writes a weekly column for the Boston Globe called "All Things Catholic". That was also the name of his column at the National Catholic Reporter. Before the middle of 2006, it was known as "The Word from Rome".

In addition to this column and occasional other pieces for NCR, Allen's work as a journalist has been appeared in the New York Times, CNN, NPR, The Tablet, Jesus, Second Opinion, The Nation, the Miami Herald, Die Furche, and the Irish Examiner.

Allen is the author of several books, including one about Opus Dei, Opus Dei: An Objective Look Behind the Myths and Reality of the Most Controversial Force in the Catholic Church and two about Pope Benedict XVI. The first was written before Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger became pope, the other after his election to the papacy. They were all published by Doubleday Random House.

In 2000, Allen published Cardinal Ratzinger: The Vatican's Enforcer of the Faith, a biography. Several reviewers criticized as biased against Ratzinger. Joseph Komonchak called it "Manichaean journalism." After some examination, Allen concluded that these criticisms were valid. In his next biography of Ratzinger, The Rise of Benedict XVI: The Inside Story of How the Pope Was Elected and Where He Will Take the Catholic Church (2005), Allen tried to be fair to all sides and viewpoints. Allen acknowledged that his first book was "unbalanced" because it was his first book and was written, he wrote, "before I arrived in Rome and before I really knew a lot about the universal church." He said his second biography "gives prominent voice to criticisms of Ratzinger; it does not give equally prominent voice to how he himself would see some of these issues."

Kenneth L. Woodward, former religion editor for Newsweek, wrote in 2005: "Outside of the North Korean government in Pyongyang, no bureaucracy is harder for a journalist to crack than the Vatican's. And no one does it better than John L. Allen Jr. ... In just three years, Allen has become the journalist other reporters—and not a few cardinals—look to for the inside story on how all the pope's men direct the world's largest church." According to the London Tablet, Allen is "the most authoritative Vatican writer in the English language."

Allen was critical of how the Vatican communicated the decision to lift the excommunications of the bishops of the Society of Saint Pius X.

Allen said that one of his reasons for writing his study of Opus Dei was that he felt that liberal and conservative Catholics were too often shouting at each other, and he hoped that a book that tried to be fair to all sides would lead to civilized discussion. According to John Romanowsky of Godspy, Allen's ability to report without revealing his personal opinion has been called "maddening".