Robert Sullivan
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Senior editor at @americamag. Previously at @MassINC, Boston Phoenix (editor of LGBT supplement), Boston Business Journal, New York Blade. Native of Malden, MA.
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Articles by Robert Sullivan
When Catholic higher education meets A.I.: We can’t let new technology override moral wisdom
In “Magnifica Humanitas,” Pope Leo XIV invites us to see that in a world with artificial intelligence, we need not only technical expertise but also moral wisdom. The pope does not condemn A.I. Instead, he promotes an appreciation of A.I. as a tool that, like any tool, can be used for good or for ill. We can use this tool in ways that help us to think more creatively and critically, or less so; to solve problems, or make them worse; to unite us, or divide us; to enhance life, or destroy it.
From Our Archives Archives
Posted inFrom Our Archives An interview with Krisanne Vaillancourt Murphy, the executive director of Catholic Mobilizing Network Posted inFrom Our Archives Bishop John J. O’Connor, then the auxiliary bishop to the Military Vicar, wrote on chaplains in ‘America’ in 1982.
Charlie Kirk’s assassination and the chilling effect of political violence
The Republican governor of Utah, Spencer Cox, articulated the feeling of many Americans when he said on CNN a few days after the assassination of the conservative activist Charlie Kirk, “If your view of America is not shaken right now, then there’s something wrong with you.” The country has indeed been shaken—not only by last week’s assassination but also this year by the shootings of two state legislators (one of them fatal) in Minnesota, the attempt to burn down the governor’s mansion in...
Column: Paying tribute to a Dartmouth legend
E-Edition Advertise Newsletters Subscribe Home News Opinion Sports Photos Arts & Life Obituaries Classifieds Calendar Puzzles Dimitri Gerakaris works on a sculpture of John Kemeny, who served as Dartmouth's president from 1970-1981, in his studio in Canaan, N.H., on Wednesday, May 14, 2025. Gerakaris was commissioned to make the sculpture by the class of 1975 for their 50th reunion.
Jimmy Carter (1924-2024) set a new standard for ex-presidents
Loading... Click here if you don’t see subscription options Former President Jimmy Carter poses for a portrait during the Toronto International Film Festival, Sept. 10, 2007, in Toronto. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster, File) The surest road to success in politics is to imitate what’s worked before, but Jimmy Carter, who died on Sunday, always went his own way. As a politician, his greatest strength was spotting opportunity, even if he wasn’t always adept at using power once he got it.
The Democrats lost to someone who is unfit to lead the nation. Can they learn from it?
From the perspective of “horse race” political analysis, nothing much changed this week. It was another inconclusive national election. Six of the seven U.S. presidential elections in the 21st century have ended in popular-vote margins of less than five points, historically considered “close,” and the seventh, in 2008, was marked by uncertainty about whether the first Black nominee of a major party, Barack Obama, would really do as well as the polls predicted.
Why is the presidential election so close? Here are five reasons.
Loading... Click here if you don’t see subscription options Republican presidential nominee former President Donald Trump speaks during an interview with Bloomberg News Editor-in-Chief John Micklethwait during an event with the Economic Club of Chicago, Tuesday, Oct. 15, 2024, in Chicago. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci) Here in the blue bubble of New York City, I often hear people express puzzlement that polls show a close race for the White House between Kamala Harris and Donald J. Trump.
‘Stop Donald Trump’ isn’t enough. The Democratic Party needs a deeper message to win the election.
Loading... Click here if you don’t see subscription options President Joe Biden and first lady Jill Biden appear on stage before Mr. Biden delivers remarks on the 75th anniversary of NATO at the Andrew W. Mellon Auditorium on July 9, 2024, in Washington, D.C. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci) Regardless of whether Joseph R.
Joe Manchin was no centrist
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The GOP debate shows the Republican Party still belongs to Trump
Loading... Click here if you don’t see subscription options Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and businessman Vivek Ramaswamy talk at the same time during a Republican presidential primary debate hosted by FOX News Channel Wednesday, Aug. 23, 2023, in Milwaukee.
Abortion, student loans and the Republican weakness for nostalgia
Loading... Click here if you don’t see subscription options A student wears a crucifix and a pro-life T-shirt during a July 22, 2022, Turning Point USA Student Action Summit (SAS) in Tampa, Fla. (CNS photo/Marco Bello, Reuters) The Democrats seem to be in better shape going into this fall’s elections than previously thought. A Wall Street Journal poll released on Sept.
Social justice isn’t really a new religion. It still hasn’t figured out forgiveness.
Loading... Click here if you don’t see subscription options Americans with no church affiliation are sometimes called “nones,” but in a recent essay in The Atlantic, Helen Lewis suggests that some of them have actually found a “new religion” in the social justice movement.
Defund everything
It is time to defund the police. I haven’t called them in years, and I need that tax money back to subscribe to Disney Plus. It is time to defund the I.R.S. My printer is broken, so I don’t have any financial records past 2012, and I need that tax money back to buy a No Soliciting sign for my front door. It is time to defund public transportation.
Reading the news is torture enough. Watching TV shouldn’t be.
My latest column at America magazine explains why, with 100 channels on Roku, I keep ending up watching old movies on HBO: Reading the news is torture enough.
Nobody trusts anybody, and that's great news for authoritarians
My latest column for America magazine looks at the decline of confidence in our major political (and economic and social and religious) institutions, and why that fraying of trust is so dangerous: Read the whole thing here.
The church isn’t alone. Americans are losing their trust in (almost all) major institutions.
Loading... Click here if you don’t see subscription options The Supreme Court is seen in Washington May 5, 2022. (CNS photo/Evelyn Hockstein, Reuters) It’s not just you. According to a rash of new polls, Americans have come together over the belief that the country’s major institutions are seriously out of whack. But there is a lack of consensus on what to do about this crisis of trust.
Legislature may send residents $250 checks
THE MASSACHUSETTS LEGISLATURE intends to take up a bill that would send $250 checks to more than 2 million low and middle-income Massachusetts residents. As many residents struggle with inflation and the high price of gas and other products, the Democratic-led Legislature still has not proposed any form of tax relief, despite the urging of state Republicans and Republican Gov. Charlie Baker. But on Thursday, House Speaker Ron Mariano, Senate President Karen Spilka, and Ways and Means chairs Rep.
Transit riders and communities need better RTA service - CommonWealth Magazine
AS THE 2021 – 2022 legislative session draws to a close in Massachusetts, our constituents are overwhelmed. Overwhelmed by record high gas prices and inflation that too often force them to choose between filling up at the pump and filling their refrigerators. Overwhelmed by the economic fallout of the COVID-19 pandemic, which has left too many folks behind on rent payments and facing eviction.
Don't shoot in the subway, darling
I have a new column at America magazine on why packing heat is a bad idea in big cities like New York. But the Supreme Court may soon force us urbanites to live with concealed weapons wherever we go. The full essay is here.
Replacement theory and NIMBYism have the same racist roots
I have a new column at America magazine (yes, it's been a while!) on the similarities between the "Great Replacement Theory" so popular on Fox News and the "not in my backyard" opposition to new housing that can be found in even the most liberal and Democratic areas. An excerpt: Variants of the great replacement theory have been present on a smaller scale in towns and in neighborhoods all over the United States, including in deep-blue Democratic areas.
Replacement theory and NIMBYism have the same racist roots
Loading... Click here if you don’t see subscription options Zoning codes are not the only ways to keep new people out of a community. There are also restrictions on particular living arrangements (like bans on how many non-family members can live together). (iStock) The man suspected of killing 10 people in a mostly Black neighborhood in Buffalo on May 18 believes in it. Tucker Carlson has made it a central theme of his nightly program on Fox News, even if he avoids using the exact phrase.
Why Americans don’t understand polling on Roe v. Wade
Loading... Click here if you don’t see subscription options An abortion demonstrator in Washington is seen outside the U.S. Supreme Court May 3, 2022, after the leak of a draft opinion on the court's upcoming abortion ruling was published. (CNS photo/Evelyn Hockstein, Reuters) A large majority of U.S. adults—57 percent—want the Supreme Court to uphold Roe v. Wade, which legalized abortion nationwide in 1973, acccording to a Monmouth University poll released on May 11.
Robert Sullivan: What I believe the District Attorney's Office owes the Berkshires
I write to commend The Eagle’s recent editorial titled “Our Opinion: District attorney’s sense of ‘responsibility’ raises serious questions.” To the article’s “entreaty that Ms. Harrington focus on her deadly serious duties, we must add that it is time for her to forthrightly answer questions raised by her behavior,” I submit that such answers will not be forthcoming or will be hidden behind the false jargon of a non-answer.
The most-viewed stories of 2021: the Latin Mass, Pope Francis vs. EWTN and Covid-19 (again)
A word cloud shows the most-used words in the most-viewed stories from the past yeah in America (Credit: Robert D. Sullivan) We began this year with the hope for relative calm after the news avalanche of 2020—a year dominated by the beginning of a global pandemic, a U.S. presidential election and a reckoning with the long history of racism in the United States. But just like too many buzzed-about TV series, our big news stories never seem to reach any kind of conclusion.
Survey: A third of young Catholics expect to attend Mass less often after the pandemic
Only 8 percent of young U.S. Catholics (ages 18 to 35) said their faith was weakened by the Covid-19 pandemic, according to a national survey released on Nov. 9 by the Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate, but nearly one-third expect to attend Mass less often after the pandemic than they had before. Perhaps of greater concern to the church, 73 percent agreed “somewhat” or “strongly” that they could be a good Catholic without going to Mass every Sunday.
Survey: Priests in the U.S. are divided on politics and Pope Francis. But most agree the state of the church is ‘not so good.’
Priests put their hands on the heads of newly ordained priests during an ordination Mass celebrated by Pope Francis in St. Peter's Basilica at the Vatican May 12, 2019. (CNS photo/Yara Nardi, Reuters) Priests on both sides of the U.S. political divide are largely pessimistic about the state of the U.S. church and its future, according to a study released on Nov. 2 and based on an email poll of 1,036 Catholic clergymen.
Tackling obesity
By Robert Sullivan | 21 July 2021 Our England men’s football team’s incredible run to the Euro 2020 final captured hearts and minds across the nation, creating a rare moment of national unity and celebration. Despite the result, their journey has given us all hope, inspiring many to pull on a shirt and sing their support or kick a football about with their friends for the first time in ages.
Democracy in ‘America’: Our coverage of U.S. politics since the rise of Donald Trump
Insurrectionists scale the west wall of the the U.S. Capitol in Washington on Jan. 6, 2021. (AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana) On June 1, a group of 100 history and political science scholars issued a warning about “the recent deterioration of U.S. elections and liberal democracy” and concluded, “History will judge what we do at this moment.” The warning did not come out of the blue.
Yes, population decline is bad
I just wrote a column for America magazine about population decline in the United States and how to prevent it.
Pope Francis is worried about population decline. The U.S. will need more pro-family and pro-immigrant policies to continue to grow.
Photo by Joey Csunyo on Unsplash As long as the United States has been a global superpower, there have been arguments that it has begun its inevitable decline. Different writers have described an economic, cultural, moral or military decline, but in April the Census Bureau pointed to a more literal definition. It estimated that from 2010 to 2020, the U.S. population grew at the slowest rate since the 1930s and at the second-slowest rate in the nation’s history.
Second shot, second shot at life?
« How immigration affects the three Americas | Main I got my second (Pfizer) shot last Monday, so I'm almost at the fully vaccinated stage and will be returning to my madcap Manhattan social life once I can find pants that fit. I may return to posting on this blog if there seems to be interest. And there is still some traffic to this blog, even it is accidental and Google-generated. In the meantime, I have written a couple of pieces on statistics at America Magazine.
Why do white Catholics have such a high vaccination rate? Is it faith or education?
About two-thirds of white U.S. Catholics have received a Covid vaccine or plan to get one as soon as possible, according to a PRRI poll released on April 22. That was a higher rate than PRRI found for any religious group other than Jews, and there seemed to be no significant difference between white Catholics who attend religious services and those who do not.
COLLEGE FOOTBALL
SATURDAY'S HEROES... Colgate tailback Kenny Gamble. Gamble rushed for 206 yards on 31 carries to become the NCAA Division I career leader in all-purpose yards with 7,623. He also tied the Division I-AA career mark for 100-yard rushing games, 29, as the Red Raiders shut out Boston University 38-0. Tulane wide receiver Marc Zeno. Zeno had 12 receptions for 238 yards and two touchdowns in a 38-10 win over Southwestern Louisiana that assured the 6-4 Green Wave of its first winning season since 1981.
Covid-19 has thrived on economic inequality-and may make it even worse
Homeless outreach personnel assist passengers found sleeping on subway cars in New York City on April 30. New York has the highest income inequality among the 50 states, comparable to the inequality in the nation of Angola. (AP Photo/John Minchillo, File) As the coronavirus pandemic spread around the country early this year, it became apparent that low-income individuals were at the greatest risk.
Biden gets a bump in Trump Country, and 8 takeaways from the Michigan primary
Bernie Sanders won about 36 percent of the popular vote in Tuesday’s Democratic presidential primary in Michigan, one of his best showings so far outside of Vermont. But with two candidates left, that was far from enough to mean a competitive race with former Vice President Joe Biden, now on a glide path to become the 2020 nominee and the third Catholic in U.S. history to head the Democratic Party.
A world of unrest: Watchdog group counts dozens of flashpoints across the globe
If your nerves are on edge, it may just be from paying more attention to international news. Instability seems to reign in almost every region of the world, and the United States must deal with an ever-changing list of foreign policy crises. As of Feb. 6, the Center for Preventive Action—part of the Council on Foreign Relations, a nonprofit think tank—listed 26 “conflicts around the world of concern to the United States” on its interactive Global Conflict Tracker.
Joe Biden turns back the clock, and 6 other takeaways from Super Tuesday
The biggest Democratic primary day of the year is over, and voters in 14 states said they have heard enough, effectively wiping out the last year of debates and town halls involving literally dozens of candidates to restore Joe Biden to front-runner status.
Biden aims for inevitability, and 7 takeaways from South Carolina
It is always a danger to call an election “the most important ever,” but this year’s Super Tuesday presidential primaries will cause unprecedented angst no matter how they turn out. Will the possibility of Bernie Sanders winning the Democratic presidential nomination continue to freak out everyone over the age of 40? Will Mr. Sanders lose his chance to win a majority of convention delegates, causing his supporters to freak out about the possibility his nomination will be “stolen”?
Super Tuesday is a week away. Here are 6 takeaways from Bernie’s win in Nevada.
The Democratic presidential primary campaign is a week from its possible tipping point, and Bernie Sanders’s easy win in the Nevada caucuses on Feb. 22, powered by a 3-to-1 lead over Joe Biden among Hispanic voters, makes it even more likely that the Vermont senator will come out of Super Tuesday’s 16 contests with a clear lead in convention delegates. But will he come close to winning a majority of the popular vote that day?
Bernie breaks the primary system, and other takeaways from New Hampshire
It has never been part of his platform, but Bernie Sanders may be able to take credit for ending the tradition of giving Iowa and New Hampshire the power to choose presidential nominees. After getting 26.5 percent of the popular vote in the Iowa caucuses, Mr. Sanders won the New Hampshire primary with 25.7 percent—a bit less than the 27.3 percent Pat Buchanan got in winning the Republican primary there in 1996.
Monty Python and the 7 early takeaways from Iowa
This article will be updated when offical county results from the Iowa caucuses become available. In a sketch from “Monty Python’s Flying Circus,” the late Terry Jones plays El Mystico, a magician hired to build public housing on the cheap by means of mass hypnosis. The only problem is that if the tenants stop believing in the building’s existence, it will collapse. Advertisement Last night the Iowa caucuses started to collapse.
Ireland is fine with fracking-as long as it happens in Pennsylvania
A fracking gas well in the Marcellus Shale formation, which is primarily in New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania and West Virginia and is the largest source of natural gas in the United States. (iStock/6381380) As an island nation, Ireland gives special significance to water. Folklore tells of swans transformed from humans, bound to lakes for centuries.
Trump’s attacks against Iran bypassed Congress. Here’s why that’s a bad thing.
On Jan. 3, President Trump ordered a U.S. drone attack to kill Iranian General Qassim Soleimani, who was then in Iraq. The drone strike also killed nine other Iranians and Iraqis at Baghdad’s airport. The president then made threats of further attacks against Iran, including tweets suggesting attacks on cultural sites that would be against international law, and ordered thousands of additional U.S. troops into the Middle East. On Jan.
Pope Francis tells Roman Curia: Do not fear change, it is in the nature of the missionary church
Pope Francis’ eve-of-Christmas talk to the Roman Curia was different in tone this year. It was challenging but not as hard-hitting as in previous years, except when he warned against “the ever-present temptation to rigidity.” In it, he sought to encourage and reassure, even as he spoke about a reform that started in mid-2013, has encountered opposition, and is expected to be completed in 2020 (though he did not announce this).
The scriptural case for women deacons
The synod on the Pan-Amazonian region re-opened the question of whether women can be deacons in the church. But we can return to the beginning as we contemplate the future. The New Testament not only gives us women deacons, but we know one of their names: Phoebe. This is her hour. Because Jesus never refers to priests, deacons or ordination in any direct way, our discussion should take us to the earliest literature in the New Testament: the letters and ministerial practice of the Apostle Paul.
Pope Francis abolishes the pontifical secret for sexual misconduct cases involving clerics
In a decision of enormous importance, long called for by survivors of abuse and their advocates, Pope Francis has abolished the pontifical secret for sexual misconduct cases concerning clerics. The “pontifical secret” is not related to the seal of the confessional, which remains absolute (and inviolable) in Catholic teaching and practice.
America’s most-viewed stories of 2019
Are we in a post-truth era? Can Google or Wikipedia explain things for us, or do we first need someone to explain how Google and Wikipedia work? Can we trust Siri? Will we have to wait for the all-knowing Janet, from TV’s “The Good Place,” to be created and tell us what’s what? Our epistemic crisis, in which people cannot seem to arrive at a shared version of reality, may have had a hand in determining the most popular America Media content of 2019.
Kerry Kennedy on the chaos and cruelty at the U.S.-Mexico border
Asylum seekers in Tijuana, Mexico, listen to names being called from a waiting list at a border crossing in San Diego on Sept. 26. (AP Photo/Elliot Spagat,File) Dear Cara, Mariah and Michaela: I have spent recent days holding tight to thoughts of you three, my heart breaking as I meet families fractured and in turmoil, yet clinging to the hope of the American dream. Advertisement I am about to fly home from Tijuana after meeting with asylum seekers and their lawyers at the U.S.-Mexico border.
A University of Cambridge research project takes a frank look at clericalism and sexuality
Since Pope Francis identified “clericalism” as a key factor in the sexual abuse crisis, it has been a topic of intense discussion among both laypeople and priests. Francis sees it as a sickness that associates ministry with power rather than service. A hierarchical attitude that separates clergy and elevates them above the laity, clericalism seems to permeate the institutional church.
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