Death is the only certainty in life. Despite this, the topic is generally avoided because it causes uneasiness, fear and pain. Sooner or later, everyone will be faced with the challenge of having to accompany a loved one through dying and certainly one’s own death. The challenge is to reconcile oneself with vulnerability and mortality and to prepare for this ultimate event. Different factors may influence the way one approaches death and dying, including the prevailing cultural climate. Our historical time is characterized by an hedonistic atmosphere, an excessive trust in technology and medical advancement, and the denial of death or its institutionalization, all of which dehumanize dying.

Arnaldo Pangrazzi is professor at The International Institute for the Theology of Pastoral Health Care (Camillianum) in Rome, Italy. He is the author of a number of books dealing with death and dying, grief, pastoral care of the sick, the enneagram. He is the President of AIE (Associazione Italiana di Enneagramma) and has developed a number of advanced courses of the enneagram, which he has taught in a variety of countries: Italy, Spain, Chile, Brazil, Colombia, Peru, Korea, and Uganda.