A Catholic Mystery Writer
The Best English-Language Vatican Reporter Is Hard to Read
by Austin Ruse
The first time I saw John Allen on television I changed the channel. The second and third times, too. Allen was the ubiquitous CNN Vatican commentator during the “long Lent” of sex scandals and the Vatican correspondent for the National Catholic Reporter. How like CNN, I thought, to feature a Vatican commentator likely to oppose church teachings.
One night I was too slow in changing channels and actually heard Allen speak. To my surprise, he was quite sensible. He did not bash the bishops, did not jump to the usual left-liberal solutions to the crisis: the need for married clergy, a revision of teaching on homosexuality, and so on. He was even-handed and seemed to be without an agenda short of describing what he knew about the rapidly unfolding events. He seemed like that rarest of birds, a fair reporter.
Not long after this, while in Rome and dining with a well-known conservative priest, I brought up my new revelation, thinking I was the first conservative to have discovered John Allen. “Do you know John Allen?”
“Of course.”
“He seems pretty sensible.”
[ Sotto Voce] “You know, John is on a journey.”
This is now something of a parlor game among certain Catholics who travel frequently to Rome: Whither John Allen? I know Allen, a little. He has covered two conferences I hosted in Rome, and mentions me among a long list of acknowledgments in his insightful book All the Pope’s Men. I have found him personally engaging and thoroughly professional, but have no personal insight into his spirituality or fidelity.
Whither Allen?
But here is the question: Quo vadis, John Allen? Is Allen headed into town, or is he headed out? Is he on a journey to orthodoxy, as so many of his conservative friends seem to believe, and his progressive readers fear? I sat down and re-read all of his columns to see if I could find out.
Austin Ruse writes from Washington, D.C., where he is president of the Catholic Family and Human Rights Institute (www.c-fam.org) and the Culture of Life Foundation (www.culture-of-life.org). He is the editor of C-FAM?s "Friday Fax" report on life and family issues at the United Nations.
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