John L. Allen Jr.: A life remembered in gratitude

John L. Allen Jr.: A life remembered in gratitude

Friends, colleagues, and regular Crux readers will know that my husband, John L. Allen Jr., has been battling cancer for some time, and has largely been absent from the site this year as he underwent treatment and fought for recovery. It is with great sadness and a heavy heart that I convey, nearly four years after his diagnosis, that John lost his battle with cancer on Thursday, January 22, 2026, and is now resting in the arms of God, free from…

Remembering John Allen, the Journalist who Explained the Vatican With Expertise and Wit - The Good Newsroom

Remembering John Allen, the Journalist who Explained the Vatican With Expertise and Wit World | 01/23/2026 By: Vatican News The Vatican expert analyzed and recounted the events of the last quarter-century in the life of the Catholic Church John Allen Jr., a longtime Vaticanista and editor-in-chief of the Catholic publication Crux, …

Remembering former NCR Rome correspondent, Crux founder John L. Allen Jr.

Covering the Vatican, he had a front-row seat to the waning years of Pope John Paul II’s pontificate and the election of Pope Benedict XVI.  Soon after John L. Allen Jr. hired me as national correspondent for Crux — the news outlet he left this paper to help launch in 2014 — I was due to travel to Rome on one of the many trips John encouraged me to take there under his watch.  Even though my beat at the time was the U.S. Catholic Church, John in…