Paul Griffiths–A Call to rediscover the Art of Dying

….Catholic moral theologians at the moment have much more to say about the importance of staving off death than the importance of learning how to welcome it, and this needs to be corrected. If it is not, we will lose Therese’s sense that death can be a matter for rejoicing.

Catholics need to begin to think and teach again, in public, about the ars moriendi, the art of dying.

One way in which this might be done is for the church to educate its wealthy – in American terms, that means anyone with medical insurance and a household income over $100,000 annually – that it might be good for them to die sooner than they do and with less care than they have come to think their right.

There is no reason why the church ought to accept the guidelines of the American Medical Association about such things….

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