Just looked up that pope prophecy, and it's really interesting reading about that. Hadn't heard about it before.
Personally, I think we're already seeing the result of Christianity's phasing-out in many developed countries. Especially some of the ones in Europe, where religious zealotry isn't quite the barrier like it is in America. Atheism, agnosticism and simply being religiously non-affiliated seems to be the most popular alternative to Christianity so far, if you look at the numbers. These numbers are now growing pretty fast not just in these less religious countries, but across the developed world. People have grown to trust science for all their answers to life, and have started to develop a distaste for certain dogmatic aspects of religion.
There is also the whole "new age" concept of spirituality that seems to be more and more accepted by the mainstream lately. You see random office normies really starting to embrace stuff like chakras or meditation, just basic bitch stuff that helps with their anxiety or whatever. This gives them an outlet for the same things praying and going to mass used to give people, but they're still not affiliated with an actual religion. Whether good or bad, it's the ultimate way for them to avoid commitment to a fully religious/spiritual outlook on life. I personally find the direction these people take new age shit in kinda cringey sometimes, but hey. At least if new age becomes more socially acceptable, it'll get easier to openly be an occultist without everybody thinking you're a basket case.
Whether or not the death of Christianity is a bad thing, though, is more of a mixed bag imo. I personally live in a very Christian part of a Christian country already known for churning out some weird ass zealots, and I will certainly not miss living with some of the unnecessary dogma and repression that can go with that. Shit like coming out as gay meaning your parents are about to disown you, kids not being allowed to read Harry Potter, women being pressured into feeling guilt just for normal ass consensual sex. And, of course, the fact that people like us have to constantly keep our heads down about what we do, just so we can go about our damn lives.
There are also some things about religion in general, though, that people may surely miss without anything to fill that void. When done in a healthy manner, religion can give people a sense of meaning, or make the shitty parts of life such as loss easier to deal with. At least in my country, church groups have always been the main way communities get together and take care of each other. There may be people unable to find that sense of local community and belonging otherwise. Churches are also one of the biggest sources of charity here, especially for groups like the homeless and disaster victims. With the rising cost of living as well as shit like drug addiction, mental disorders and other debilitating life conditions getting even more common, we're gonna have one hell of a gap to fill without such a built-in charity network on every block.
