What happens to the soul of someone with Alzheimer's Disease?

[Pansy]

What happens to the souls of people with Alzheimer’s Disease? I wouldn’t think they are capable of examination of conscience or confession.

 

[Michelle_Arnold]

Pansy:

I wouldn’t think they are capable of examination of conscience or confession.

That’s only a problem if they committed and have not repented of a mortal sin prior to their incapacity. Since a mortal sin requires grave matter, full knowledge, and full and free consent to the action, we cannot know if that person has committed such a sin. If the afflicted person (perhaps at a mild stage in the illness) goes to confession and confesses all that he remembers, all of his sins (including any he honestly forgot) are forgiven. Indeed, so long as the person at least implicitly desires to receive the anointing of the sick and is generally disposed to receiving it, he can be forgiven of his sins by the anointing of the sick.

This sacrament [the anointing of the sick] is to be administered to the sick who, when they were in possession of their faculties, at least implicitly asked for it (canon 1006, Code of Canon Law [1983]).

The special grace of the sacrament of the anointing of the sick has as its effects:

the uniting of the sick person to the passion of Christ, for his own good and that of the whole Church;

the strengthening, peace, and courage to endure in a Christian manner the sufferings of illness or old age;

the forgiveness of sins, if the sick person was not able to obtain it through the sacrament of penance;

the restoration of health, if it is conducive to the salvation of his soul;

the preparation for passing over to eternal life (CCC 1532).