The preparation of the priests to deal with the death situation in Brazil: a documentary and critical review

Abstract

At present we find many studies focused on the death situation, in several areas of knowledge. Perhaps the current interest is related to the social, cultural and technological changes of the last decades that reach human life and also the situation of death. Research provides advances in understanding and in the way the sciences concretely address the situation. In this context, the Catholic Church is called to rethink the guidelines to the clerics for the specific work with those who are dying and the mourners. Based on these considerations, this article proposed a critical documentary review of how the Catholic Church considers, in its official documents, the preparation of the clergy to deal with the situation of death, with guidelines for pastoral practice in Brazil, from of the Second Vatican Council. Twelve documents were selected based on three criteria: temporal, objective of the documents and type of publication. All the documents were analyzed and the references they presented with regard to the objective of this article were highlighted. The result shows the relevance of theological formulations and documents directed to ritual practices, but only ritual does not guarantee the good preparation of the presbyters. There is a lack of reflection and specific guidelines for the pastoral practice of parents. It is also considered that this work should count on the contributions of the sciences that produce much on the subject.