John L. Allen Jr.

John L. Allen Jr.
Born(1965-01-20)January 20, 1965
Hays, Kansas, U.S.
DiedJanuary 22, 2026(2026-01-22) (aged 61)
Rome, Italy
Alma mater
OccupationsReligion journalist and author
Years active1997–2026
EmployerCrux
SpouseElise[1]

John Lewis Allen Jr. (January 20, 1965 – January 22, 2026) was an American journalist and author who served as editor of the Catholic news website Crux, formerly hosted by The Boston Globe and now independently funded.

Before moving to The Boston Globe when Crux was established in 2014, Allen worked for 17 years in Rome as a Vatican watcher, covering the Holy See and the Pope for the National Catholic Reporter. He also served as a Senior Vatican Analyst for CNN, and featured in broadcast coverage of the conclaves of 2005 and 2013. Allen was the St. Francis de Sales Fellow of Communication and Media at the Word on Fire Institute founded by BishopRobert Barron. Allen was the author of numerous books about the Catholic Church. He wrote two biographies of Pope Benedict XVI.

Early life and education

John Lewis Allen Jr. was born on January 20, 1965, in Hays, Kansas.[1][2][3] He graduated from Capuchin-founded[4]Thomas More Prep-Marian High School in 1983.[5] 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. From 1993 until 1997, Allen taught journalism and oversaw the student-run newspaper, The Knight, at Notre Dame High School in Sherman Oaks, California.[1]

Career

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

In 2014, Allen took up a position as associate editor with The Boston Globe and helped to launch its website, Crux.[6] In 2016, the Globe transferred ownership of the Crux website and its intellectual property to Allen. It now operates on the basis of advertising income, syndication and licensing as well as support from benefactors. Allen and his wife, Elise, who also serves as a Senior Correspondent for Crux, lived in Rome.

In an interview quoted in the Vatican's 2020 McCarrick Report, Allen stated he did not report rumours because, "If I tried to interview every one of these guys [bishops] every time I heard something salacious, that is all I'd be doing and I'd be out of business in a heartbeat."[7]

Allen received a number of honorary doctorates from universities:

Personal life and death

Allen firstly married Shannon Levitt.[12]

Allen married fellow journalist Elise Ann Harris in Key West, Florida, in about 2020.[13]

Allen suffered with stomach cancer for three years prior to his death in Rome, on January 22, 2026, at the age of 61.[14][15]

Publications

Allen with Pope Benedict XVI

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

Allen wrote, among other books, two biographies of Pope Benedict XVI. The first was written before then-Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger became pope, the other after his election to the papacy. In 2000, Allen published Cardinal Ratzinger: The Vatican's Enforcer of the Faith, the first biography of Ratzinger in English.[16] Several reviewers criticized it as being biased against Ratzinger. Joseph Komonchak called it "Manichaean journalism".[17] After some examination, Allen concluded that this criticism was valid.[18] 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". In that acknowledgement he said the first 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".[19]

In 2005 he published a book about Opus Dei, Opus Dei: An Objective Look Behind the Myths and Reality of the Most Controversial Force in the Catholic Church. 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 objectively, without revealing his personal opinion, has been called "maddening".[20]

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."[21]

Allen was critical of how the Vatican communicated the decision to lift the excommunications of the bishops of the Society of Saint Pius X.[22]

Books

  • Cardinal Ratzinger: The Vatican's Enforcer of the Faith. New York, NY: Continuum, 2000.
    • Reprinted in 2005 as Pope Benedict XVI: A Biography of Joseph Ratzinger.
  • Conclave: The Politics, Personalities, and Process of the Next Papal Election. New York, NY: Image Books, 2002.
  • All the Pope's Men: The Inside Story of How the Vatican Really Thinks. New York, NY: Image Books, 2004.
  • The Rise of Benedict XVI: The Inside Story of How the Pope Was Elected and Where He Will Take the Catholic Church. New York, NY: Image Books, 2006.
  • Opus Dei: An Objective Look Behind the Myths and Reality of the Most Controversial Force in the Catholic Church. New York, NY: Image Books, 2007.
  • The Future Church: How Ten Trends are Revolutionizing the Catholic Church. New York, NY: Image Books, 2009.
  • The Catholic Church: What Everyone Needs to Know. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013.
  • The Global War on Christians: Dispatches from the Front Lines of Anti-Christian Persecution. New York, NY: Image Books, 2013.
  • The Francis Miracle: Inside the Transformation of the Pope and the Church. New York, NY: TIME Books, 2015.
  • Shahbaz Bhatti: Martyr of the Suffering Church. Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 2017.
  • Catholics and Contempt: How Catholic Media Fuel Today's Fights, and What to Do About It. Park Ridge, IL: Word on Fire Institute, 2023.

Book-length conversations

  • (with Cardinal Timothy Dolan) A People of Hope: The Challenges Facing the Catholic Church and the Faith that Can Save It. New York, NY: Image Books, 2011.
  • (with Bishop Robert Barron) To Light a Fire on the Earth: Proclaiming the Gospel in a Secular Age. New York, NY: Image Books, 2017.

Booklets

  • 10 Things Pope Benedict XVI Wants You to Know. Liguori, MO: Liguori Publications, 2007.
  • Global Good News: Unseen Work of the Catholic Church. Liguori, MO: Liguori Publications, 2010.
  • 10 Things Pope Francis Wants You to Know. Liguori, MO: Liguori Publications, 2013.
  • Against the Tide: The Radical Leadership of Pope Francis. Liguori, MO: Liguori Publications, 2014.

Online articles/columns

References

  1. ^ abcNossiter, Adam (January 29, 2026). "John L. Allen Jr., Journalist With Inside Access to the Vatican, Dies at 61". The New York Times. Retrieved January 29, 2026.
  2. ^Kiser, Becky (January 16, 2014). "Hays native named religion editor for Boston Globe". hayspost.com. The Hays Post. Archived from the original on December 1, 2018. Retrieved September 24, 2016.
  3. ^Allen, John L. Jr. (2007) [2005]. Opus Dei: An Objective Look Behind the Myths and Reality of the Most Controversial Force in the Catholic Church. New York: Image Books. p. iv. ISBN 978-0-385-51450-7. Birth year in catalog heading in Library of Congress cataloging-in-publication data.
  4. ^"History". tmp-m.org. Thomas More Prep-Marian. Archived from the original on December 1, 2018. Retrieved September 24, 2016.
  5. ^"Capuchins elect brother to Rome post". National Catholic Reporter. September 8, 2006. Retrieved August 8, 2009. It is no secret to regular readers of this column that I have a special affection for the Capuchins, who had the Christian charity to put up with me in grade school and high school in Hays, Kansas in the late 1970s and early 1980s.
  6. ^Coday, Dennis (January 7, 2014). "John Allen to cover Catholicism, the Vatican for Boston Globe". National Catholic Reporter. Retrieved January 10, 2014.
  7. ^Secretariat of State of the Holy See (November 10, 2020). Report on the Holy See's Institutional Knowledge and Decision-making Related to Former Cardinal Theodore Edgar McCarrick (1930 to 2017)(PDF) (Report). Vatican City State. p. 224. Retrieved January 30, 2026.
  8. ^"Honorary Degree Recipients of the University of St. Michael's College".
  9. ^"Lewis University | About Us | Honorary Degrees Bestowed by Lewis University".
  10. ^"Civil rights champion is 2015 Commencement speaker". May 8, 2015.
  11. ^"2016 Commencement Program by University of Dallas - Issuu". May 15, 2016.
  12. ^Levitt, Shannon (January 2, 2017). "A peculiar Catholic education led this Jew to love Rome". Crux. Retrieved January 30, 2026.
  13. ^Allen, Elise Ann (January 22, 2026). "John L. Allen Jr.: A life remembered in gratitude". Crux. Retrieved January 30, 2026.
  14. ^Allen, John L. Jr. (April 12, 2025). "A John Allen update, and three notes of thanks". Crux. Retrieved January 23, 2026.
  15. ^Esteves, Junno Arocho (January 22, 2026). "Crux editor, veteran Vatican journalist John Allen loses battle with cancer". OSV News. Retrieved January 22, 2026.
  16. ^Bourgeois, Jason Paul. "John L. ALLEN, Jr., Pope Benedict XVI: A Biography of Joseph Ratzinger". Catholic Books Review. Retrieved September 21, 2017.
  17. ^Joseph Komonchak, book review, in Commonweal, 2000.
  18. ^Allen, John (June 25, 2004). "Catholic Common Ground Lecture". National Catholic Reporter. Retrieved March 12, 2009.
  19. ^"What to Expect from Benedict XVI". Beliefnet. April 2005. Retrieved March 13, 2009.
  20. ^Romanowsky, John (December 22, 2005). "Unveiling Opus Dei: An Interview with John L. Allen". GodSpy. Retrieved January 10, 2014.
  21. ^Woodward, Kenneth L. (January 18, 2004). "An All-Seeing Outsider". Newsweek. Retrieved January 10, 2014.
  22. ^"The Lefebvrite case: What was the Vatican thinking?". National Catholic Reporter. January 30, 2009. Retrieved February 19, 2009.
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