Finding the Right Words

How can we find the right words when we are speaking with those who are seriously ill? That is a problem faced by all of us, but especially and often by medical caregivers. This essay approaches the problem by examining and to some extent disagreeing with an answer provided by the late Roman Catholic philosopher Germain Grisez. His assertion that patients have a right to be in charge of their health care is not supple enough to do justice to the intricacies of communication with the suffering and dying. It is more helpful to say, in the words of Helmut Thielicke, that coming to know the truth “is not a presupposition but a goal.”