Rome, Italy - Mainstream churches in the West appear to be dying as societies that are increasingly secular see less need for God,
Pope Benedict said in comments published on Wednesday.
His outlook was even glummer than that of his predecessor John Paul, who lamented the decline of faith in the developed world and said it explained the Catholic Church's struggle with falling attendance in the West in recent years.
Benedict said many developing countries were, by contrast, enjoying a "a springtime for faith."
"It is different in the Western world, a world which is tired of its own culture, a world which is at the point where there's no longer evidence for a need of God, even less of Christ," he told a meeting of clergy in the Italian Alps where he is on holiday.
"The so-called traditional churches look like they are dying," he said, according to a text published by Vatican daily L'Osservatore Romano.
Participation at Sunday Mass in some developed countries was as low as 5 percent, a recent Vatican report said.
A combination of an increasingly secular mentality and the lure of more simplistic sects was challenging the relevance of the Church, especially in Europe, Australia and, to a lesser extent, the United States, the 78-year-old Pope said.
"The Catholic Church is not doing as badly as the big Protestant Churches but naturally it shares the problem of this moment in history."
The Pope blamed a change in social attitudes in the 1960s for the Church's decline in the West, referring to what he termed a "second enlightenment" of 1968, the year of the so-called 'summer of love' and student and worker protests.
There was no easy solution for the Church, he said, but people needed to see that they could not turn away from God.
"There's no system for a rapid change. We need to get through this tunnel with patience in the certainty that Christ is the answer and, in the end, he will shine his light once again."