***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.
Yes, it was us illegitimate Christians (protestants) who caused it; it had nothing to do with the Catholic Church being irrelevant to the majority of people, and responding too late - with Vatican II, it's attempt to become more culturally relevant and accessible - to save the Boomers.
Attendance in the evangelical branches of Christianity has been growing steadily for 100+ years; the traditional, "High Church" denominations (Orthodox, Catholic, Anglican, and the like) have stagnated or shrunk. But that's OK, it's us illegitimate, misguided, heretical protestants who are the cause of the US turning from Christ!