Taking Leave: The ‘Good Death’ Today

Abstract

Summary The ‘good death’ has become part of the pastoral care of the dying. It is a spin-off from the increasingly widespread introduction of palliative care. At heart such care is about giving people dignity and worth. But there are issues that arise: • Setting up norms and thus, the idea of failure;• Death can become anodyne;• What about customer choice?• How can we meet the demands of pluralism?• The loss of the communal dimension of death;• The question of ‘the beyond’.