I don’t think the Pope was only referencing America. He isn’t writing for America, but for the world.
Anyway, I sense you wouldn’t think that the Pope was meddling in political matters that it shouldn’t be involved in if the Pope wrote this:
In this context, some people continue to defend redistributionist theories which assume that wealth redistribution, encouraged by a benevolent state, will inevitably succeed in bringing about greater justice and inclusiveness in the world. This opinion, which has never been confirmed by the facts, expresses a crude and naïve trust in the goodness of those wielding political power and in the sacralized workings of the prevailing political system. Meanwhile, the excluded are still waiting. To sustain a lifestyle which excludes others, or to sustain enthusiasm for that selfish ideal, a globalization of indifference has developed. Almost without being aware of it, we end up being incapable of feeling compassion at the outcry of the poor, weeping for other people’s pain, and feeling a need to help them, as though all this were someone else’s responsibility and not our own. The culture of prosperity deadens us; we are thrilled if the state offers us something new to receive. In the meantime all those lives stunted for lack of opportunity seem a mere spectacle; they fail to move us.
Not that I support the above. But the Pope is critiquing abuses in capitalism and individualism and has every right to, just as he has every right to critique statism and socialism.
I think his words were targeted at the injustices prevalent in today’s economy, both in America and especially worldwide.
This is seems accurate though; neoliberalism has been attacked by previous Popes as well.
