The aim of this article is to rethink the conception that Josef Kentenich, Catholic priest, preacher and German educator of the first half of the twentieth century, holds regarding mechanistic thinking (mechanistische Denken), seen as the principle pathology affecting modernity. According to his proposal, this mentality prevents contemporary man from reaching a correct understanding of God and the mediating role of creatures, which in turn affects the connection between human authority and divine fatherhood. Nevertheless, rather than employing the same notions and language of Kentenich to understand its diagnosis, this work sets out to use the ideas of the rationalization of world religious images (Rationalisierung religioser Weltbilder) and the rationalization of forms of domination (Rationahsierung der Herrschaft) as a background for interpretation which the German sociologist Max Weber in turn used to give an account of the distinctiveness of Western culture. In this way, the thesis that guides this work suggests that the Weberian category of "rationalization of the world" can prove especially illuminating in seeking to explain the problem detected by Kentenich within the Catholic world and the West in general.