Take the "Protestant" qualifier off and I might believe it. The Catholic Church has done far more to shape Western civilization than Protestantism ever did. Almost everything we know and do today is shaped somewhere in the past by Catholic tradition.
-------
I thought it was the Pagan Greco-Romans.
You could also say it was the Jews. Or the Eqyptians. Or the Druids. And there would be some truth in all of those.
But for immediate relevance in everything from art to technology to exploration, the Church shaped the West.