UNITED STATES
Religion Dispatches

BY KAYA OAKES MARCH 28, 2016

On March 14 of this year, the Boston Globe announced it would be pulling the plug on Crux, the Catholic news website it launched in 2014. Crux was headed by John Allen Jr., a veteran church reporter who had previously written for National Catholic Reporter, CNN, NPR and many other outlets, most of them operating independently of the Catholic church.

Allen has also written several books about the Vatican, including a 2000 biography of then-cardinal Ratzinger that was seen by many as critical of the former prefect of the Vatican’s Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. In spite of some readers holding the opinion that Allen’s work veers toward the liberal side, Allen has strived for neutrality as a journalist, thus making him a logical pick to head the Globe’s venture into Catholic journalism.

In its brief existence,…