Pecknold on Augustine, liberalism, "compromise", etc.

Following up on my last post about Thomas Joseph White's piece, here's a short op-ed from Prof. Chad Pecknold, on what St. Augustine has to say about Catholic strategy in a "liberal era."  A bit:

For St. Augustine, the City of God on pilgrimage in this world is the only common good united to the highest good, and the Catholic Church gives us the “true attachment” (vera religio) to it. So it is only in communion with the Catholic Church that individuals, communities, peoples, cities, nations, can be properly “attached.” However, Augustine’s integralism also provides a realistic measure for the Catholic to judge regimes as more or less ideal, on a scale. In Augustine’s “alternative” definition of a republic, he argues that Catholics can and will need to use the relative peace of cities whose orders will be judged better or worse according to their “common objects of love.” That is, in non-ideal regimes, Augustine encourages the integralist to help move his neighbours from low to high, from loving vice to loving virtue, from self-centred order to God-centered order. . . .

I'm (still) sympathetic to the view that American-style constitutional democracy - correctly understood and practiced -- is ("relative[ly]" speaking) a more-ideal non-ideal regime.  But, of course . . . I could be wrong!