“I’m picking up mixed messages here, Kolo.
1. He’s a lightweight and nobody listens to him.
2. He’s making trouble for the entire Church.
Help me out here.”
1. He is a theological lightweight, a joke frankly, among theologians. That’s simply a fact, though he may be an effective shill for American rightist politics.
2. He is listened to by American Catholics, mostly lay people but also a handful of equally politicized hierarchs, who measure the orthodoxy of theology by a secular, American political standard. That causes trouble for the whole Church.
Before I sign off here, it's worth noting that there is no area of human endeavor or activity which does not fall within the Church's purview. That includes political and civic affairs. It especially includes political affairs. It applies in spades to the defense of human life. In so far as there is a moral aspect to all human activity, the Church is perfectly within its rights to measure these against the Christian Gospel and provide moral guidance just as John the Baptist told the secular leader of his own time that it was not right for him to sleep with his brother's wife.
You have it half right. Politics should not infect the Church. The Church should infect politics. There is no area of human life where there is no room for the Gospel. To say otherwise is to lay the foundations for the terrible secularism, otherwise known as the "separation" of Church and state which has wrought such havoc to this country.