John L Allen Jr Weekly Column
INTRODUCTION
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 In 2000, John Allen, NCR Senior Correspondent, established the Rome office of the National Catholic Reporter. From that position, he broke stories on Rome's response to the American sexual abuse crisis, the Vatican's opposition to the U.S.-led war in Iraq, the death of John Paul II and the election of Benedict XVI, and a wide variety of other important Vatican events. In the summer of 2006, Allen established a new office in New York, allowing him to expand his coverage of both the American church and the global Catholic scene, while continuing to keep his eye on Rome. Allen is the author of five books on the Catholic Church, including All the Pope's Men, The Rise of Benedict XVI, and Opus Dei (all from Doubleday), and serves as senior Vatican analyst for CNN. His weekly Internet column, formerly "The Word from Rome" and now rechristened as "All Things Catholic," has a wide international readership. Allen's work is followed across the usual ideological divides in the church, and he speaks widely on Catholic affairs in the United States and around the world. |
Here for  feed. |
Lessons to learn from the papal trip
Posted on May 9, 2008 09:13am CST.| All Things Catholic by John L. Allen, Jr. | |
| Friday, May 9, 2008 - Vol. 7, No. 27 | |
On Wednesday I spoke at the annual World Communications Day luncheon of the Diocese of Brooklyn, hosted by Bishop Nicholas DiMarzio. For this group of media professionals in the New York area, as well as local Catholics, I was asked to ruminate on lessons to be learned from the visit of Pope Benedict XVI to the United States.
Interview with Ambassador Glendon; A possible papabile
Posted on May 2, 2008 09:50am CST.| All Things Catholic by John L. Allen, Jr. | |
| Friday, May 2, 2008 - Vol. 7, No. 33 | |
Mary Ann Glendon is the eighth Ambassador of the United States to the Holy See, and by most measures she's probably the nominee least in need of on-the-job training. Glendon is a veteran Vatican insider, having represented the Holy See at the 1995 Beijing conference of the United Nations on women, and having served as president of the Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences -- the first woman to head a pontifical academy. A professor at the Harvard Law School, she's also an expert on international legal theory.
The story behind the pope's meeting with sex abuse victims; Cardinal O'Malley interview
Posted on Apr 25, 2008 10:17am CST.| All Things Catholic by John L. Allen, Jr. | |
| Friday, April 25, 2008 - Vol. 7, No. 32 | |
Prior to Pope Benedict XVI's visit to the United States, some handlers worried that the American media would impose the sexual abuse crisis as the trip's dominant storyline. As it turns out, those fears were misplaced -- the media didn't impose the crisis upon the pope, he imposed it on us.
Notice about John Allen's Friday column
Posted on Apr 18, 2008 08:32am CST.Benedict on America: In his own words
Posted on Apr 11, 2008 09:16am CST.| All Things Catholic by John L. Allen, Jr. | |
| Friday, April 11, 2008 - Vol. 7, No. 31 | |
As Pope Benedict XVI's arrival in the United States approaches, the media is chock full of pieces outlining the challenges the pope faces in America, and trying to anticipate what he might do or say to address them. Perhaps it's fitting that the last word before the curtain goes up, however, should belong to Benedict himself.
By that, I'm not referring to the brief video message to the American people from the pope released by the Vatican this week. Instead, I have in mind the various reflections on the United States offered by Joseph Ratzinger over the years, much of which dates from the period before his election to the papacy.
Vatican ambassador to U.S. talks of coming papal trip
Posted on Apr 4, 2008 09:36am CST.| All Things Catholic by John L. Allen, Jr. | |
| Friday, April 4, 2008 - Vol. 7, No. 30 | |
Editor's Note: Just as today's column was being posted, John Allen filed the following report on his daily news journal: Vatican fence-mending campaign with Jews picks up steam.
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I was in Washington, D.C., this week for a Tuesday luncheon sponsored by the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life. George Weigel and I had been invited by Luis Lugo, director of the Pew Forum, to brief reporters on Pope Benedict XVI's April 15-20 visit to the United States. As Weigel put it, he was there to offer an "op/ed" perspective, with emphasis on the pope and Islam, while I tried to fill the "news hole" with a broad overview.Public spotlight on a personal conversion; Papal trip prep; 1978 and Catholic life
Posted on Mar 28, 2008 09:29am CST.| All Things Catholic by John L. Allen, Jr. | |
| Friday, March 28, 2008 - Vol. 7, No. 29 | |
Rarely does an Easter Vigil Mass become a news event, but this year's edition in St. Peter's Basilica certainly got the world's attention. The reason: One of seven new Catholics personally baptized by Pope Benedict XVI happens to be an Egyptian-born Italian journalist and convert from Islam, widely regarded as the successor to Oriana Fallaci in terms of visceral protest against Muslim extremism.
A "one-stop-shopping" guide to Pope Benedict's U.S. visit
Posted on Mar 20, 2008 14:16pm CST.| All Things Catholic by John L. Allen, Jr. | |
| Thursday, March 20, 2008 - Vol. 7, No. 28 | |
This week's column is intended as a "one-stop-shopping" guide to the April 15-20 visit of Pope Benedict XVI to the United States. There's a lot of material, and it may be best read in chunks rather than at one sitting. I hope it proves a useful overview not just of the highlights of the pope's schedule, but also the trip's background and context.
Giving a name to historical change
Posted on Mar 14, 2008 05:48am CST.| All Things Catholic by John L. Allen, Jr. | |
| Friday, March 14, 2008 - Vol. 7, No. 27 | |
On Tuesday I was in Dayton, Ohio, where the University of Dayton put together a panel to discuss my argument that "evangelical Catholicism" constitutes a mega-trend in Catholic life. Aside from me, the panelists were William Portier, who holds the Mary Ann Spearin Chair in Catholic Theology at the University of Dayton; and David J. O'Brien, Loyola Professor of Roman Catholic Studies at the College of the Holy Cross.
