We really shouldn’t see anything “apocalyptic” in this, if by “apocalyptic” we mean the Second Coming and the End of the World.
Of course, none of us know the day or the hour, so we should be ever vigilant. Our end can come at any time. However, what the former pontiff means by this is simple.
Starting with the philosopher Descarte (though the idea was germinating previous to that) human reason separated itself from God and tried to understand reality (and in some ways “create” reality) according to its own powers.
The journey away from God has being going on for some 400 years and it is now finally coming to a head. We see in our society the full clash of “God’s Way” and that of “Man’s Way”, the spiritual vs. the God-less secular.