This paper will be concerned with the Roman Catholic perspective on religious issues for the dying. In recent years, a great deal of scientific research has been done in an effort to understand the phenomenon of death. Researchers such as Raymond Moody and Elisabeth Kubler Ross have determined that an entity (known as the "spirit" or "soul") survives after the human body has died. Because their studies are limited to "near death" experiences in which the subjects return to life, Moody and the other researchers have not yet determined what happens to the soul after the first few minutes of the experience. Nevertheless, enough is known about "near death" experiences to show that there are numerous parallels between those experiences and the beliefs that Catholics have long held on the subject. In particular, the Catholic viewpoint agrees that the soul continues to survive beyond death. According to Roman Catholic theology, a person's soul "survives the body and lives eternally" (Benton, 1978, p. 65). After death, the soul goes either to Heaven or Hell, depending upon the quality of life that the person lived while on earth. In some cases, the soul goes to "purgatory," where temporary punishment is experienced and the soul is thus purged of its previous sins (Ryan, 1990, p. 110). Belief in the soul continues to be an important part of modern Catholic faith. Thus, the 1979 Sacred Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith affirmed "that a spiritual element endowed with consciousness and will survives the death of the human person" (Hayes, 1988, p. 272).
In 1969, Dr. Elisabeth Kubler Ross published a book entitled On Death and Dying, in which she presented the results of her studies on death. She found that dying people typically go through five distinct stages before accepting their own death. These stages are denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and finally acceptance. According to Kubler Ross, the acceptance stage c...