This paper explores the role of religious belief in the experiences of dying and death in a Catholic nursing home. The home appeals to residents and their families due to the active religious presence. Thus, religion is a salient element of the “local culture” which exists in this long-term care setting. The preeminence of faith within the organization and the personal religious convictions of staff, residents, and families may drive how death and dying are discussed and experienced in this setting, as well as the meanings that are attached to them. This paper examines the relationship between faith and the experience and meaning of death in this nursing home. We present themes that emerged from open-ended interviews with residents, family members, and staff, gathered between 1996 and 2004. The data indicate that people select the home due to their Catholic faith and the home's religious tone. Themes also show that belief in God and an afterlife helps shape the experience of dying and death for our informants. Our paper does not compare ease of dying with other nursing homes or within other belief systems. 1. Introduction There has been little research focusing on the attitudes and meaning of death for individuals who are surrounded by death and often confront thoughts of their own mortality, for example older adults living in nursing homes [1–5]. In addition, there have been few studies that examine bereavement experiences and psychological manifestations of loss that compare people of faith—however that might be defined—to others [6–10]. For old age, such a comparison might be made more difficult by the imminence of losses of all sorts. For example, some families of people with Alzheimer’s disease may see their loved ones sometimes as experiencing a kind of predeath prior to physical death [11, 12]. However, and regardless of any such considerations, beliefs about dying in the presence of God are found in the nursing home that we discuss here. This is a Catholic institution in which a felt relationship with God is one feature in a panoply of sometimes diverse and paradoxical ideas about God, suffering, and dying. One difference between how the death of loved ones is experienced by people of faith in comparison to nonbelievers is the issue of whether death is seen as a joyous transition [10]. The deceased is seen as moving on to a “better” place, that is a setting without disease and physical pain and suffering. In research described below, some informants, regardless of religious beliefs, described the death of a loved one as a positive in that it
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