I am generally of the opinion that mankind lost its way at some point following the excesses of the absolute monarchies, the Black Death, and the Reformation. I would also consider the First World War to be the mortal blow to the Western culture. The Second one, as well as the Cold War were after effects of the First.
***As a Catholic, i’d like to agree with you, but the fact is that church attendance has dropped since the second world war — since that event. The next generation after that was the Baby boomers
and THEY, single-handedly, made the West godless. I suspect it was because they saw the effects of WWII and the carnage, yet didn’t have the discipline and the perseverence their parents had. A greedy generation (with many notable exceptions of course, but I talk in generalities here)***
Tom Brokaw wrote about the greatest generation - who made great sacrifices for this nation and Western civilization and then procreated the Baby Boomers who did their damndest (and still are) to completely eliminate Western civilization. How does one generation to the next undergo this complete reversal?
The keys, I think, come out of the Restoration Movement, in the 1850s and the next wave in the early 1900s, which saw the creation of ever more bizarre religions, and then the Great Depression hit.
WWII was a rallying point; after that, there were no more rallies.