John L Allen Jr 
CNN Vatican Analyst
THE FUTURE CHURCH

One of the formost religion journalists, 
John L Allen Jr (KU '92) offers an unexpected and provocative look at where the Catholic Chuirch is headed and what the changes will mean. Allen is the Senior Vatican Analyst for CNN, The National Catholic Reporter, and National Public Radio. He is the author of 
"The Futuire Church" and several other books about the Catholic Church.

For more information:
www,religiousstudies.ku.edu

This event is free and open to the public.

John L. Allen Jr. is CNN’s Senior Vatican Analyst, the prize-winning Senior Correspondent for the National Catholic Reporter, a frequent commentator for other media outlets, and the author of six books on the Vatican and Catholic affairs. His weekly internet column, “All Things Catholic,” is widely read, even by Vatican insiders, as a source of insight on the global Catholic Church. 

John Allen, Jr. completed his M.A. in Religious Studies in the Department of Religious Studies, University of Kansas in 1992. John and his wife Shannon live in the United States and maintain a residence in Rome.

John Allen, Jr.’s six authored books:
     1. Cardinal Ratzinger: The Vatican’s Enforcer of the Faith (Continuum, 2000)
     2. Conclave: The Politics, Personalities and Process of the Next Papal Election (Doubleday, 
 2002)
     3. All The Pope’s Men: The Inside Story of How the Vatican Really Thinks (Doubleday, 2004)
     4. The Rise of Benedict XVI: The Inside Story of How the Pope was Elected and What it Means 
 for the Catholic Church (Doubleday, 2005)
     5. Opus Dei: An Objective Look behind the Myth and Reality of the Most Controversial Force in 
 the Catholic Church (Doubleday, 2005)
     6. The Future Church: How Ten Trends are Revolutionizing the Catholic Church (Doubleday,  2009).

What is the future of the Roman Catholic Church? No one can better answer this question than John L. Allen, Jr., the prize-winning senior correspondent for the National Catholic Reporter, senior Vatican analyst for CNN and a frequent commentator for other media. 
   He completed his masters degree at the University of Kansas in 1992. He returns Apr. 11 at 7:30 p.m. to the Kansas Union where he will discuss ten “megatrends” from his sixth book, “The Future Church.”
   He wrote me that, fresh from a trip to Ireland, he’ll “probably also have some thoughts on how Ireland is reacting to what is probably the most massive sexual abuse crisis anywhere in the Catholic world.”
   I asked him how he worked in such a way as to gain access to sometimes secretive Vatican sources while maintaining objective and fair reporting.
   “I know my reporting sometimes strikes people as favorable to the Vatican and to the bishops, but that’s honestly not my aim. (A lot) of reporting on the Catholic Church is so sloppy, and the Church itself is often so bad at PR, that any halfway balanced presentation is going to end up making them look better than they usually do,” he said.
   I wondered how his work affected his own spiritual life.  
   “Most people assume that knowing how the sausage is ground is hazardous to your spiritual health, but in my case it’s had the opposite effect. I already knew there were politics and careerism and petty jealousies in the Church before I started this gig, so there weren’t too many scales to fall from my eyes.
   “The surprise has been how much more I’ve discovered. . . . I’ve seen how the Catholic faith has inspired ordinary people to do mind-blowing things, such as serving the poor and healing divisions and fighting corruption and saving souls. 
   “My experience has helped me to see beyond the normal preoccupation with scandals and division and heavy-handed exercises of authority, as important and unavoidable as those stories are, to how much more there is to Catholic life. 
   “In the end, that’s deepened my faith rather than causing some existential crisis,” he said.
   Allen praised his preparation in Lawrence. “The Department of Religious Studies, in my humble opinion, is one of KU’s crown jewels,” he said. His training “taught me to think sympathetically yet critically about religious realities, and it gave me the tools to frame the right questions and to know where to look for answers. Moreover, several of the professors under whom I studied have become sources for me because they’re world-class experts in their fields,” he said.
   For my full interview with him, see www.cres.org/allen.
  Vern Barnet does interfaith work in Kansas City. Reach him at vern@cres.org.

I’ll jot down some random thoughts on your questions, and you can decide what, if anything, is useful for your piece. 
 

1. Among the many reasons you are widely admired is your ability to get inside a sometimes secretive bureaucracy without offending your sources, and preparing analyses that seem to be generally regarded as fair by most of those involved. What is the spiritual discipline that enables you to do this? More generally, how has your own spiritual life been affected by the people in the church and in the media and your knowledge of how things happen? 

First of all, “widely” is a slippery word. Some admire me, sure, but there are also plenty of critics out there. One person’s balance is another person’s cowardice! 

As far as spiritual discipline goes, I try not to think about how my spiritual beliefs influence my work. Journalism is an essentially secular enterprise, so when I tackle a subject, I’m not thinking in a spiritual key. I’m just trying to get the story right. Reality is complicated, and if you do justice to reality, I suppose you’re going to come off as balanced, fair, etc. Actually, I’m always a little suspicious of journalists who talk too much about their values or their spiritual lives … to me, that sounds like an agenda is coloring the way they see the facts.

I know my reporting sometimes strikes people as favorable to the Vatican and to the bishops, but that’s honestly not my aim. Let’s face it … a lot of reporting on the Catholic Church is so sloppy, and the Church itself is often so bad at PR, that any halfway balanced presentation is going to end up making them look better than they usually do.

That said, obviously the experience of covering the Catholic Church has influenced my spiritual life. Most people assume that knowing how the sausage is ground is hazardous to your spiritual health, but in my case it’s had the opposite effect. I already knew there were politics and careerism and petty jealousies in the Church before I started this gig, so there weren’t too many scales to fall from my eyes. The surprise has been how much more I’ve discovered. I’ve been able to see what the faith means to Catholics around the world, including situations where people have been willing to shed blood rather than to give it up. I’ve seen how the Catholic faith has inspired ordinary people to do mind-blowing things, such as serving the poor and healing divisions and fighting corruption and saving souls. My experience has helped me to see beyond the normal preoccupation with scandals and division and heavy-handed exercises of authority, as important and unavoidable as those stories are, to how much more there is to Catholic life. In the end, that’s deepened my faith rather than causing some existential crisis.
 

2. Especially with the election of Archbishop Dolan over a less conservative leader, many Catholics see little possibility for reexamination of issues like abortion, homosexuality, women priests, and married clergy (except for those converting to Catholicism) in the future. Are there any signs to the contrary?

If you mean a reexamination of the substance of the teachings on abortion and homosexuality, no, I don’t see any signs of change. I think what Dolan wants to change is the tone, not the teaching. He wants to accent what the Church is for, not what it’s against, so that it doesn’t come off as a finger-wagging scold. It’s what I call “Affirmative Orthodoxy” – defending traditional Catholic teaching, but trying to phrase it in the most positive fashion possible. Part of that effort is making dialogue, not condemnation, your first instinct when you run across people who disagree. 

Married clergy is a different question, because priestly celibacy is a discipline of the Church, not a doctrine. Catholicism already has married priests in the 22 Eastern rite churches in communion with Rome, as well as hundreds of converts from Anglicanism and Lutheranism who were already married and were allowed to remain so even after ordination as priests. In principle, there’s no reason that couldn’t be expanded. If it happens, though, I don’t expect the momentum will come from the United States or Europe, but from the global South, where the priest shortage is actually much worse than it is here.
 

3. Is there any possibility for interfaith dialogue under Pope Benedict that does not presume the superiority of the Church as the fulfillment of all other religious traditions?

Actually, I think Benedict’s progress in interfaith dialogue after a rocky start is one of the under-reported stories of his papacy. He’s made progress with Judaism, exemplified by his comments in his recent book on Jesus that “the Jews” are not to blame for the death of Christ and that the Church shouldn’t be trying to convert them. He’s made even greater progress with Muslims, through his vision of an “Alliance of Civilizations” between Christians and Muslims in defense of a robust place for religion and religious believers in a secular world.

In general, Benedict’s approach is to shift from “inter-religious” to “inter-cultural” dialogue with other religions, which means getting away from theological issues that divide the faiths and putting more emphasis on social, political and cultural concerns where they have shared values, such as serving the poor, the defense of human dignity and human life, ending war, and so on. That opens up a lot of fertile territory for cooperation.

To be sure, Benedict XVI believes that Christianity uniquely expresses the full truth about human life and destiny, the same way that faithful followers of other religions feel about their own traditions. Yet he doesn’t think that has to be an obstacle to dialogue. His view would be that dialogue is a sham if it means you have to check your own identity at the door.
 

4.  What would you like my readers to know about your experience at KU and what would you like them to know about your address April 11?

The Department of Religious Studies, in my humble opinion, is one of KU’s crown jewels. Nobody actually studies to be a full-time Vatican reporter, because in the English language there are maybe ten – statistically, you have a better shot of playing in the NBA! But the education I received at KU prepared me very well for this work, even without knowing that’s what I was doing, because it taught me to think sympathetically yet critically about religious realities, and it gave me the tools to frame the right questions and to know where to look for answers. Moreover, several of the professors under whom I studied have become sources for me, because they’re world-class experts in their fields.

As for the lecture, it’s based on my book “The Future Church.” It examines ten mega-trends, from the explosion of Christianity in the southern hemisphere, to the rise of militant Islam, to the biotech revolution and globalization. Though it’s focused on Catholicism, the trends are actually relevant for all Christian denominations and, for that matter, all religions. I take a journalist’s view, not a theologian’s or a pastor’s, so I’m not preaching – I’m trying to give people some tools to think about these trends for themselves.

As it happens, I’ll be appearing at KU immediately after a trip to Ireland to give a couple of talks, so I’ll probably also have some thoughts on how Ireland is reacting to what is probably the most massive sexual abuse crisis anywhere in the Catholic world.