Goanet Digest, Vol 21, Issue 54

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Today's Topics:

   1. Listen to: Karim Sadjadpour, Iran analyst - "Iran?s regime is
      ?weaker than it?s ever been,? says regional expert" (Vivek Pinto)
   2. All Cases Under Uttarakhand's Conversion Law Which Went to
      Full Trial Resulted in Acquittals: Report (Vivek Pinto)
   3. Read: John L. Allen Jr., Journalist With Inside Access to the
      Vatican, Dies at 61 (Vivek Pinto)


----------------------------------------------------------------------

Message: 1
Date: Fri, 30 Jan 2026 18:38:15 +0900
From: Vivek Pinto <[email protected]>
To: Goanet <[email protected]>
Subject: [Goanet] Listen to: Karim Sadjadpour, Iran analyst - "Iran?s
	regime is ?weaker than it?s ever been,? says regional expert"
Message-ID:
	<CAH3OY9xxReH-bvcB_jEkchykEDL5kXLzNadtwCBm5MvMqejUNQ-JsoAwUIsXosN+BqQ9rBEUg@public.gmane.org>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="UTF-8"

By: Bianna Golodryga
Published in: *CNN - Amanpour*
Date: January 29, 2026
Source:
https://edition.cnn.com/2026/01/29/tv/video/amanpour-golodryga-sadjadpour-iran

"Veteran Iran analyst Karim Sadjadpour says people there are 'desperately
waiting to see what President Trump may do.'"


------------------------------

Message: 2
Date: Fri, 30 Jan 2026 20:48:39 +0900
From: Vivek Pinto <[email protected]>
To: Goanet <[email protected]>
Subject: [Goanet] All Cases Under Uttarakhand's Conversion Law Which
	Went to Full Trial Resulted in Acquittals: Report
Message-ID:
	<CAH3OY9zhvOvypnB6Lej81DtDARL-fnVQK9EJCnz6-70zQdv7og-JsoAwUIsXosN+BqQ9rBEUg@public.gmane.org>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="UTF-8"

By: The Wire Staff
Published in: *The Wire*
Date: January 30, 2026
Source:
https://thewire.in/communalism/all-cases-under-uttarakhands-conversion-law-which-went-to-full-trial-resulted-in-acquittals-report
Back in 2022, the law was further strengthened and stringent provisions of
10 years of imprisonment and increased monetary fine was included in it.

*New Delhi:* Almost seven years after the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)
government in Uttarakhand passed a law to what it termed as curbing ?forced
religious conversions?, an investigation by *Indian Express*
<https://indianexpress.com/article/express-exclusive/cases-under-uttarakhands-conversion-law-fall-in-court-7-years-5-full-trials-all-5-acquittals-10502378/?ref=breaking_hp>
 has found that all the cases under the legislation which had gone to full
trials, resulted in acquittals.

According to the newspaper?s investigation into cases registered under the
Uttarakhand Freedom of Religion Act (UFRA), data obtained under the Right
to Information (RTI) Act shows that until last month, 62 cases were
registered by the Uttarakhand Police under the UFRA, which was passed in
2018.

As per court records, till September 2025, only five have gone to full
trial and all these cases have ended in acquittals. Seven cases were
dismissed mid-way after complainants turned hostile or there was lack of
corroboration and failure by the prosecution to establish coercion or
inducement.

Even as the cases which have gone to trial have resulted in acquittals, the
number of cases filed under UFRA has been on the rise, with 20 cases
registered in 2023 and 18 cases registered in 2025, till September,
reported Indian Express.

Back in 2022, when the law was further strengthened and stringent
provisions of 10 years of imprisonment and increased monetary fine was
included in it through an amendment, the opposition Congress had said
<https://thewire.in/politics/as-uttarakhand-beefs-up-anti-conversion-law-congress-slams-bjps-politics-of-polarisation>
 that the developments were part of the BJP?s long-term plan of dividing
votes on religious grounds.


------------------------------

Message: 3
Date: Sat, 31 Jan 2026 00:35:45 +0900
From: Vivek Pinto <[email protected]>
To: Goanet <[email protected]>
Subject: [Goanet] Read: John L. Allen Jr., Journalist With Inside
	Access to the Vatican, Dies at 61
Message-ID:
	<CAH3OY9xFD59BijeOwXXVdmxg4p-YQOr6r+VAcZW0e-a4dBufog-JsoAwUIsXosN+BqQ9rBEUg@public.gmane.org>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="UTF-8"

By: Adam Nossiter
Published in: *The New York Times*
Date: January 29, 2026
Source:
https://www.nytimes.com/2026/01/29/business/media/john-l-allen-jr-dead.html
He seemed to know everyone at the Holy See, and it showed in his reporting
for the National Catholic Reporter and his website, Crux, though some said
he grew too close to his sources.

John L. Allen Jr., a journalist admired for his informed coverage of the
Vatican, much of it derived from his extraordinary insider access to the
church?s power players that some critics said put him too close to his
sources, died on Jan. 22 in Rome. He was 61.

His death, from stomach cancer, at a hospice facility, was announced
<https://cruxnow.com/church/2026/01/john-l-allen-jr-1965-2026> by the
Catholic news website Crux, which he founded.

For 25 years, Catholic Church watchers paid close attention to the
reporting that Mr. Allen did, first as the Vatican correspondent for the
National Catholic Reporter, and then as the executive editor of Crux and as
a columnist for it.

Mr. Allen seemed to know everybody at the Holy See, from the lowest
functionaries to the popes themselves ? from John Paul II to Leo XIV ? and
it showed in the depth of his reporting. He arrived in Rome in 2000, ?a
somewhat sloppily put together Midwestern man? from Kansas, the NCR
journalist Christopher White wrote
<https://www.ncronline.org/opinion/guest-voices/former-ncr-rome-correspondent-crux-founder-john-l-allen-jr-dies-61>,
and soon became an insider?s newsman with a passion for explaining a
mysterious and opaque institution to the laity.

He often dined with his sources, and he reaped the benefits. Some criticized
<https://www.theatlantic.com/daily-dish/archive/2010/03/the-problem-with-john-allen/189164/>
 him for being too close to the Vatican and not tough enough on the church
over the sex-abuse scandal that burst into view in the 1980s, but nobody
questioned his access to the Curia?s inner reaches.

Mr. Allen wrote 11 books on the church, including several about Pope
Benedict XVI and one about Opus Dei, the secretive and powerful Catholic
organization. He was regularly called on by other news organizations,
including CNN and The New York Times, to offer commentary on what was going
on behind the scenes in Rome.

?From the end of the 20th century until his death, Allen was essential
reading for anyone who cared about the inner workings of the Vatican,? the
Rev. Thomas J. Reese, a veteran religion journalist and Jesuit priest, wrote
<https://religionnews.com/2026/01/22/vatican-journalist-and-expert-john-l-allen-jr-dies-at-61/>
 after his death. ?I, like many of my fellow Vatican observers and opiners,
always checked to see what he said.?

Mr. Allen had been in Rome for barely four years as the National Catholic
Reporter?s Vatican correspondent when, in 2004, Kenneth L. Woodward,
Newsweek?s religion editor and writer, called him
<https://www.newsweek.com/all-seeing-outsider-125659>?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.?

Four years later, on a flight taking Benedict XVI to the United States for
a five-day visit, Mr. Allen was selected to ask the first question of the
pope. The Vatican press officer turned to Benedict and said, ?Holy Father,
this man needs no introduction.?

In the major Vatican stories Mr. Allen covered ? the conservatism of Pope
Benedict, the sluggish response of John Paul II to the sex-abuse scandal,
the liberalism of Pope Francis ? he earned respect across most of the
political spectrum for his neutrality.

But that attempt at balance, and his close relationships with Vatican
officials, led to blind spots, in the view of some critics.

In 2004, after the priest who was head of the Legionaries of Christ, a
powerful church order, was accused of having sexually abused minors, Mr.
Allen wrote <https://www.nationalcatholicreporter.org/word/word120304.htm> in
his NCR column, ?I think the only honest answer is that the pope and his
senior aides obviously do not believe the charges.?

What appeared to be a defense of Pope John Paul II drew a rebuke from the
veteran Catholic journalist Jaso
<https://www.nytimes.com/2021/08/24/opinion/catholic-church-abuse-jason-berry-first-report.html>n
Berry
<https://www.nytimes.com/2021/08/24/opinion/catholic-church-abuse-jason-berry-first-report.html>,
who first broke the scandal in the mid-1980s.

In a letter to Mr. Allen, which Mr. Allen printed at length in a later
column <https://nationalcatholicreporter.org/word/word010705.htm>, Mr.
Berry accused him of being too protective of the pope and called him an
?apologist? for the Legionaries? leader, the Rev. Marcial Maciel Degollado,
against whom, he added, the evidence was ?overwhelming.?

As detailed later in a church report, Father Maciel was found
<https://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-50884518> to have sexually
abused dozens of minors. He was removed from the ministry in 2006 by Pope
Benedict and ordered to observe a ?life of penance.? He died two years
later. <https://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/01/world/americas/01maciel.html>

?John moved seamlessly in Vatican society,? Mr. Berry, who wrote ?Vows of
Silence: The Abuse of Power in the Papacy of John Paul II? (2004, with
Gerald Renner), said in an interview. ?He was very plugged in. He sometimes
got over-close to the people he covered.?

It was that very closeness that often yielded unusual insight, and scoops.
A dinner invitation that Mr. Allen extended to Cardinal Robert Prevost in
October 2024 allowed him to spot the qualities that would clinch the papal
job for the cardinal, now Pope Leo XIV, the first American pontiff.

In his Crux column in May 2025, Mr. Allen singled out Cardinal Prevost as a
leading papabile, or papal candidate, calling
<https://cruxnow.com/papal-transition/2025/05/papabile-of-the-day-cardinal-robert-francis-prevost>
 him ?a moderate, balanced figure, known for solid judgment and a keen
capacity to listen, and someone who doesn?t need to pound his chest to be
heard.?

Mr. Allen?s own moderation and balance was on full display in the obituary
he wrote about Pope Francis in Crux. The judgment was nuanced, careful to
offend neither the late pope?s fans nor his detractors.

?There were moments when Pope Francis seemed almost the Mikhail Gorbachev
of Roman Catholicism, a reformer whose willingness to buck tradition made
him a sensation outside the church and among marginal Catholics,? Mr. Allen
wrote
<https://cruxnow.com/obituary/2025/04/electrifying-maverick-pope-francis-leaves-behind-roller-coaster-legacy>,
?but whose standing within his own flock, especially those most devoted and
committed, could be uneven.?

John Lewis Allen Jr. was born on Jan. 20, 1965, in Hays, Kan., to Eileen
and John Lewis Allen Sr., a U.S. Army veteran and minor league baseball
player who died when John was young.

John Jr. graduated from Thomas More Prep-Marian high school in Hays in 1983
and went on to earn a B.A. in philosophy from Fort Hays State University
and an M.A. in religious studies from the University of Kansas.

He taught journalism at Notre Dame High School in Sherman Oaks, Calif.,
from 1993 to 1997, before joining the National Catholic Reporter, becoming
its Rome bureau chief in 2000. In 2014, he was hired by The Boston Globe,
where he started Crux, a website focusing on news about the church. When
The Globe ended its sponsorship of Crux in 2016, Mr. Allen carried on with
it independently.

His books include ?The Rise of Benedict XVI: The Inside Story of How the
Pope Was Elected and Where He Will Take the Catholic Church? (2005); ?Opus
Dei: An Objective Look Behind the Myths and Reality of the Most
Controversial Force in the Catholic Church? (2007); and ?The Future Church:
How Ten Trends Are Revolutionizing the Catholic Church? (2009).

Mr. Allen is survived by his wife, Elise Allen, a journalist at Crux.

After his death, tributes in the Catholic press emphasized his
determination to unravel the Vatican?s mysteries. But Mr. Allen was equally
keen to determine where the future of the church lay.

?The most significant transition in Catholicism in the 20th century was a
demographic shift from the global north to south in terms of the faith?s
center of gravity,? he wrote in his obituary about Pope Francis. ?And as
history?s first pope from the developing world, Francis put a face and an
agenda on that epochal change.?
Susan C. Beachy and Sheelagh McNeill contributed research.
Adam Nossiter has been bureau chief in Kabul, Paris, West Africa and New
Orleans and is now a writer on the Obituaries desk.


End of Goanet Digest, Vol 21, Issue 54
**************************************