Remembering John Allen
From the editor: Remembering John Allen, a friend whose star was born in LA
If you’re reading this, you’ve probably already heard the news that former Angelus Vatican correspondent and longtime collaborator John L. Allen Jr. died Jan. 22 in Rome at 61 following a long battle with cancer.
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.