John L. Allen, Jr.

John L. Allen, Jr.

John L. Allen, Jr. (born 1965) is an American journalist based in Rome who specializes in news about the Catholic Church. He is senior correspondent for the National Catholic Reporter and vaticanologist of CNN and NPR. 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 he was still a cardinal and the first biography of him in English.

Biography

Allen grew up in Kansas. Both his grade school and his high school (Thomas More Prep-Marian) were located in Hays, Kansas and run by the Capuchin Franciscans. Allen graduated from 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. On November 5, 2011, Allen was conferred the honourary degree of Doctor of Sacred Letters (D.S.Litt.) from the University of St. Michael's College in Toronto, Ontario.

During the coverage of the death of Pope John Paul II, Allen frequently appeared on CNN. He is now the Vatican analyst for CNN and NPR, and delivers lectures discussing Vatican issues and his latest works. Allen is one of the few Catholic journalists respected by Catholics of both "liberal" and "conservative" persuasions.

Allen and his wife Shannon live in Denver, Colorado.

Publications

Perhaps Allen's best-known work is his weekly column about world Catholicism called "All Things Catholic". Prior to mid-2006, it was known as "The Word from Rome". This column appears in the print and online versions of the National Catholic Reporter, a publication Allen has worked for since 1997.

In addition to this column and occasional other pieces for NCR, Allen's journalistic work has been published 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 a book about Opus Dei and two about Pope Benedict XVI. One of them was written when the Pope was still Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, the other after his election to the papacy. They were all published by Doubleday Random House.

Writings on the Vatican

In 2000, Allen published a biography titled Cardinal Ratzinger: The Vatican's Enforcer of the Faith. Several reviewers criticized this book for being biased as it often took an anti-Ratzinger stance. Joseph Komonchak, for example, called his writing "Manichaean journalism." After some examination, Allen concluded that these criticisms were valid. As a result, in his next biography of the same man, 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 says, "before I arrived in Rome and before I really knew a lot about the universal church." The book "gives prominent voice to criticisms of Ratzinger; it does not give equally prominent voice to how he himself would see some of these issues."

John L. Allen, Jr. with Pope Benedict XVI

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."^{[citation needed]}

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

Work on Opus Dei

Allen stated that one of his reasons for writing Opus Dei: An Objective Look Behind the Myths and Reality of the Most Controversial Force in the Catholic Church (2005) 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 rather than rancor. Allen has been called by John Romanowsky of Godspy as having an objectivity that is "maddening".^{[citation needed]}

Bibliography

Books by John Allen:

• Cardinal Ratzinger: The Vatican's Enforcer of the Faith. NY: Continuum, 2000. ISBN 0-8264-1265-3.
• Conclave: The Politics, Personalities, and Process of the Next Papal Election. New York: Doubleday/Image, 2002, revised 2004. ISBN 0-385-50453-5.
• All the Pope's Men: The Inside Story of How the Vatican Really Thinks. (Hardcover) New York: Doubleday, 2004. ISBN 0-385-50966-9. (Trade Paperback) New York: Doubleday/Image October 2006. ISBN 0-385-50967-7.
• Pope Benedict XVI: A Biography of Joseph Ratzinger. NY: Continuum International Publishing Group, 2005. ISBN 0-8264-1786-8. This is a reprint of Allen's 2000 book Cardinal Ratzinger, reprinted under a new title without Allen's permission.
• The Rise of Benedict XVI: The Inside Story of How the Pope Was Elected and Where He Will Take the Catholic Church. (Hardcover) NY: Doubleday, 2005. ISBN 0-385-51320-8. (Trade Paperback) New York: Doubleday/Image October 2006. ISBN 0-385-51321-6.
• Opus Dei: An Objective Look Behind the Myths and Reality of the Most Controversial Force in the Catholic Church. NY: Doubleday, 2005. ISBN 0-385-51449-2.
• The Future Church: How Ten Trends are Revolutionizing the Catholic Church. NY: Doubleday, 2009. ISBN 0-385-52038-7.
• All Things Catholic – John Allen's column in the National Catholic Reporter
• The Scoop on the Pope – article about Allen by Kenneth Woodward
• Interview with Allen in which he discusses his Opus Dei book and his views on "liberal/conservative" issues
• John L. Allen in Lecturalia (Spanish)

External links

• John L. Allen Jr.'s blog
• Works by or about John L. Allen, Jr. in libraries (WorldCat catalog)