rance to church?

If it be said that the crime was remitted, but not the penalty of
excommunication, and that these persons remained excluded from church
communion until after their absolution, given by the ecclesiastical
judge, we ask if a dead man can be absolved and be restored to
communion with the church, unless there are unequivocal proofs of his
repentance and conversion preceding his death.

Moreover, the persons just cited as instances do not appear to have
been released from crime or guilt, as might be supposed. The texts
which we have cited sufficiently note that they died in their guilt
and sins; and what St. Gregory the Great says in the part of his
Dialogues there quoted, replying to his interlocutor, Peter, supposes
that these nuns had died without doing penance.

Besides, it is a constant rule of the church that we cannot
communicate or have communion with a dead man, whom we have not had
any communication with during his lifetime. "Quibus viventibus non
communicavimus, mortuis, communicare non possumus," says Pope St.
Leo.[510] At any rate, it is allowed that an excommunicated person who
has given signs of sincere repentance, although there may not have
been time for him to confess himself, can be reconciled to the
church[511] and receive ecclesiastical sepulture after his death. But,
in general, before receiving absolution from sin, they must have been
absolved from the censures and excommunication, if such have been
incurred: "Absolutio ab excommunicatione debet praecedere absolutionem
a peccatis; quia quandiu aliquis est excommunicatus, non potest
recipere aliquod Ecclesiae Sacramentum," says St. Thomas.[512]

Following this decision, it would have been necessary to absolve these
persons from their excommunication, before they could receive
absolution from the guilt of their sins. Here, on the contrary, they
are supposed to be absolved from their sins as to their criminality,
in order to be able to receive absolution from the censures of the
church.

I do not see how these difficulties can be resolved.

1. How can you absolve the dead? 2. How can you absolve him from
excommunication before he has received absolution from sin? 3. How can
he be absolved without asking for absolution, or its appearing that he
hath requested it? 4. How can people be absolved who died in mortal
sin, and without doing penance? 5. Why do these excommunicated persons
return to their tombs after mass? 6. If they dared