In a posthumous work, the late Pope Benedict XVI says
La società occidentale è una società nella quale nella sfera pubblica Dio è assente e per la quale non ha più nulla da dire. E per questo è una società nella quale si perde sempre più il criterio e la misura dell’umano.
From this stems, to a large extent, the existential vacuum that modern society has gotten itself into. When is destroyed that which for centuries has served man as a fulcrum of meaning, a certainty and a support, helplessness and confusion are inevitable. Disoriented, modern man no longer has anything to fall back on, and deprived of a higher vision of existence, he has become lesser. The benefits of belief for the common man are debatable; however, it cannot be denied that religious practice forces him to see a more complex reality and often lifts him above the banality of everyday life.