In the Hour of Death

A medical doctors willingly yielded to priests in the hour of death. A doctor would commit sin if he recommended to the infirm anything that resulted in a prejudice to the soul, passed over calling his patients to repentance, did not conform to established medical practice, was not sufficiently diligent or failed to warn the patient of the risk of death. The risk of sudden death of patients whose conditions were seemingly not overly serious was precisely one of those instances when, according to theologians, the case for faith outweighed any medical consideration. In Rome, whose exemplary character the papacy sought to reaffirm, doctrinal reorientation and neo-Tridentine reform of the care of the dying went hand in hand. And it reverberated in Rome, where renowned theologians of opposed factions tried to redraw the doctrinal line in their favour. In Rome, the last decades of the seventeenth century witnessed a wave of writings on the preparation for death by rigorist authors.