(Acton Institute) – Finding better answers means asking better questions. Nowhere is this truer and more consequential than with questions surrounding matters of life and death. By asking better questions about care for the terminally ill, Dame Cicely Saunders (1918–2005)—a British nurse, social worker, and physician—founded the modern hospice movement.

It was, in fact, a question asked by a dying patient under Saunders’ care early in her career that led her to some of these better answers. In 1948, a 40-year-old patient with an incurable cancer named David Tasma asked Saunders during a bout of sadness as he faced impending death, “Can’t you say something to comfort me?”

Comfort: That was the question. It was also the answer. (Read More)