Remembering John L. Allen, Jr.

John Allen, Vatican correspondent for the National Catholic Reporter and then editor of the Catholic news site, Crux Now, would disarm his listeners with self-deprecating humor. He grew up in Hays, a small town almost in the center of Kansas, not far from the open fields where my uncles raised corn and hunted pheasants. Despite his world-wide prominence as a journalist and as the author of six books on issues related to the Catholic Church, he never lost his open, middle-of-America charm.  At one presentation in Chicago, I heard him introduce himself to the audience: “I am CNN’s senior Vatican analyst. But, of course, I am also CNN’s only Vatican analyst.” 

In 2011, as the Focolare Movement was marking its fiftieth anniversary of arriving in the United States, he wrote in NCR “Memo to a divided church: Meet the Focolare.” In his interview with Maria Voce, the Focolare’s president at that time, he shared what he found in her and in other members of the Focolare: “A large part of the reason the focolarini are able to build bridges has little to do with overt programs or structures of dialogue. It’s instead because of their personal qualities, rooted in the group’s spirituality—they tend to be open, ego-free, and just relentlessly nice.” He acknowledged that some have had difficult experiences with the Movement, concluding, “No doubt Focolare will never be everybody’s cup of tea. Yet it’s hard to escape the impression that whatever its defects, Focolare remains a valuable resource for the über-challenge facing Catholicism today: Figuring out how the church can harness its resources to face the new questions of the twenty-first century, rather than being forever consumed by its internal battles.” What he perceived over a decade ago remains valid today.

After a three-year battle with stomach cancer, he died in Rome this week, on Thursday. Elise Allen summed up her husband’s life in this way: “Where pain and suffering are present, so is hope, and it is present everywhere: in the love and generosity of those around us, and in the many little signs and blessings God sends to assure us that we are not alone.” For me, as a writer and editor for Focolare Media, John Allen exemplified the work I also try to do—to ground what I write in well-researched fact and opinion and to express the truth with humility, clarity, good humor, and hope. 

Many will miss him. I will too.

******

This article sparked thoughtful Letters to the Editor.

I’ve also been remembering today John Allen, a well-known American Catholic journalist who died two days ago.  John reported from Rome and covered the Vatican for many years.   I first met John through an interview he conducted with me in July 2009, a few days before the publication of Pope Benedict XVI’s papal encyclical Caritas in Veritate (Charity in Truth).  John had received a pre-publication copy of the encyclical and had spotted the reference in the document to the ‘economy of communion’ project, or EoC, an initiative born from the Focolare Movement that was recognized by the Pope as a group of companies oriented towards social welfare that “view profit as a means of achieving the goal of a more humane market and society.”  

     John had somehow remembered that he had heard of an American company that was run on such person-centered principles and decided to do some Googling and track down more information.  My name and company caught his attention, and so he decided to call. 

     After a rather lengthy interview in which John peppered me with every question a good journalist could think of, he said he hoped that his article could draw some attention to this ‘new’ development within the church that the Pope had highlighted.   

     After getting off the call with him, I didn’t think much more about our conversation until several days later, I began receiving phone calls from all over the world. The Pope’s encyclical had been published and so had John’s  article. 

     When I finally had time to track down the article in the National Catholic Reporter, I saw its title: “Indiana Firm Can Claim a Papal Thumbs-up from New Social Encyclical”.  I was in complete shock! What?  I initially thought that somehow John had gotten the wrong idea from our discussions. Then, I read the rest of the article, which eventually put things in the proper perspective.  

      Of course, you can’t imagine what personal havoc is caused when a well-known journalist uses a headline like that to grab some attention! In the midst of ordinary business activities, your life in relative obscurity suddenly gets a great deal of attention. Some people who knew me quite well even asked: “Did the Pope really mention your business in the encyclical?” (The answer – no!). 

  As I eventually came to realize, John was extremely skilled at his craft, and greater attention can be a good thing,   Up until that time, the EoC had been “under the radar” of most of the major Catholic news organizations. The Pope’s encyclical and John’s interview brought recognition of the EoC that eventually would produce many fruits over the years. 

  I ran into John at a conference less than a year after our interview, and affectionately scolded him:  “You don’t know how much trouble you caused me with that article title!”  He laughed, and said: “I told you I would bring attention to the EoC!”  Over the next couple of years, we would occasionally run into each other at other gatherings, and I would point to him and say: “Troublemaker!”  And we would both smile.  

   John Allen, thank you for all the wonderful things you did for our Church, including shining a small light on the Economy of Communion.  You were one of God’s best troublemakers, and will by sorely missed.   

John Mundell