In this context it was pejorative. In most contexts it’s pejorative, though I’ll grant you that it can be used non-pejoratively.
But please don’t tell me you did not intend it pejoratively when you said that those who find the encyclical defensible are merely gussying up world domination.
I don’t recall using “gussied up.”
I merely noted that the term was quite civil in my networks over the whole of my life. It usually meant someone was being a bit proud or high falootin or snooty beyond reason or justification.