RE: Did everything really just get ugly when couples started using contraception and gays and lesbians asked to be married? <<<<

Sam Rocha once characterized Rod Dreher's view of the US culture wars by describing Dreher's sense of catastrophe as kitsch and parochial, his sense of despair as emotivist and modern. Same with +Chaput's vision.

Rhetorical confrontation, political, legal, canonical & military coercions all have their rightful place as the hard powers that we must call upon at times. But prudence and subsidiarity give primacy to the less coercive soft powers of dialogical communication, diplomatic consultation, pastoral accommodation, moral enculturation & Gospel inculturation. What most characterizes the neocon cultural engagement strategy is their reflexive & inordinate reliance on hard powers. Kaveny has characterized +Chaput's approach as prophetic utterance?
That's fair-minded. But his theological anthropology seems too pessimistic, his imagination too dialectical?