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About as well as it did for the Pilgrims. And they were Protestants. So this is interdenominational.

Problem is, it goes against human nature. People are motivated by two things: Fear of bad things happening and desire for good things to happen. And the latter is the higher course.

Sadly, for many, any desire realized is automatically logged as “greed” when it is more than they have.

Judge not, lest ye be judged.

Meanwhile, the pope is a little like Obama. The more he says, the more his motives and sensibilities are exposed for all to see. And all but the True Believers will see right through him.

Ideally, those who follow Christ are motivated primarily by neither fear nor greed, but by the Love of God, which in Latin is termed “caritas” and often translated into English as Charity—a concept related to but distinct from almsgiving, which in English may also be called charity, and, it seems, socialism.

I believe that there is a major confusion of theological terms going on here.

You haven't been maying attention. None-of the popes have been fans of capitalism, and with good reason. For instance, the Liberal Party in Germany joined with Bismarck in the Kulturkampf to suppress the Catholic religion in the new German Reich. That was countered by a strong reaction by Catholics, mainly in the Rhineland. Finally, Bismarck, with his own grievances against the liberals, and fearing the growth of socialism, backed off. Bismarck virtually invented the modern welfare state as a buffer against both the socialists and the Liberals. The Church hated by both the Liberals and the socialists, supported some of these ideas. Rerum Novarum, the famous commentary by Pope Leo XIII. who was encountering a similar situation in Italy but did not encourage the formation anything like the Center (Catholic) Party in Germany, since he was committed not to dealing with the Italian kingdom, which had robbed him of Rome, and before that the Papal States, and it would not be until 1929 that the papacy came to terms—more or less- with Italy. In any case. the social doctrine of the Church has to be understood in the light of European history. In general, the popes have said as regards socialism —definitely not, and Capitalism—bad, but the lesser of two evils.