Kenneth L. Woodward, former religion editor for "Newsweek", wrote in 2005: "Outside of the North Korean government in Pyongyang, no bureaucracy is harder for a journalist to crack than the Vatican's. And no one does it better than John L. Allen Jr. ... In just three years, Allen has become the journalist other reporters—and not a few cardinals—look to for the inside story on how all the pope's men direct the world's largest church." According to the London "Tablet", Allen is "the most authoritative Vatican writer in the English language."