John Allen, longtime Vatican correspondent and founder of CruxNow.com, died this week from stomach cancer. He was 61 years old.
I followed his stories and bought his books. He was a trusted source of information. If John Allen reported it, you could be sure it was the truth.
Pablo Kay, of Angelus News, said,
For anyone with a remote interest in Catholic news — not to mention for readers of the news site he founded, CruxNow.com, and Angelus — the enormity of his loss is hard to fathom.
Having covered the Vatican for three decades, John was in essence the dean of English-speaking Vaticanistas, a wildly gifted writer whose reporting chops, deeply sourced connections, freakishly encyclopedic memory, and knack for mentorship shaped a generation of Catholic journalists.
John made the inner workings of the Catholic Church interesting, accessible, and even exciting. He was a trusted expert voice for secular news outlets covering Catholicism, known particularly for the insider perspective he brought to CNN coverage of major Church events. Ahead of the last two conclaves, English-speaking voting cardinals were known to have read his “Papabile of the Day” profiles for the National Catholic Reporter and Crux in the days before entering the Sistine Chapel.
Archishop Jose J Gomez said John Allen was “a good friend and a fine journalist,” and prayed, “May our Lady of Guadalupe embrace him in the mantle of her love, and may God grant him peace that never ends.”
The world has lost a journalist of integrity. In these times, when constant and blatant lies are stridently issued from the highest levels government and respect for truth-telling and compassion are almost nonexistent, that is a terrible loss indeed.
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