communion to the dead
by insinuating the holy wafer into their mouths. However it may be
regarding this practice, we know that Cardinal Humbert,[499] in his
reply to the ____________ of the patriarch Michael Cerularius,
reproves the Greeks for burying the Host, when there remained any of
it after the communion of the faithful.

Footnotes:

[490] Greg. Magn. lib. ii. Dialog. c. 23.

[491] Aug. de St. Virgin. c. xlv. 364.

[492] Greg. lib. ii. Dialog. c. 34.

[493] Amphil. in Vit. S. Basilii.

[494] Vide Balsamon. ad Canon. 83. Concil. in Trullo, et Concil.
Carthagin. III. c. 6. Hippon. c. 5. Antissiod. c. 12.

[495] Vit. S. Othmari, c. 3.

[496] Vit. S. Cuthberti, lib. iv. c. 2. apud Bolland. 26 Martii.

[497] Amalar. de Offic. Eccles. lib. iv. c. 41.

[498] Menard. not. in Sacrament. S. Greg. Magn. pp. 484, 485.

[499] Humbert. Card. Bibliot. P. P. lib. xviii. et tom. iv. Concil.

CHAPTER XXIII.

SOME OTHER INSTANCES OF EXCOMMUNICATED PERSONS BEING CAST OUT OF
CONSECRATED GROUND.

We see again in history, several other examples of the dead bodies of
excommunicated persons being cast out of consecrated earth; for
instance, in the life of St. Gothard, Bishop of Hildesheim,[500] it is
related that this saint having excommunicated certain persons for
their rebellion and their sins, they did not cease, in spite of his
excommunications, to enter the church, and remain there though
forbidden by the saint, whilst even the dead, who had been interred
there years since, and had been placed there without their sentence of
excommunication being removed, obeyed him, arose from their tombs, and
left the church. After mass, the saint, addressing himself to these
rebels, reproached them for their hardness of heart, and told them
those dead people would rise against them in the day of judgment. At
the same time, going out of the church, he gave absolution to the
excommunicated dead, and allowed them to re-enter it, and repose in
their graves as before. The Life of St. Gothard was written by one of
his disciples, a canon of his cathedral; and this saint died on the
4th of May, 938.

In the second Council, held at Limoges,[501] in 1031, at which a great
many bishops, abbots, priests and deacons were present, they reported
the instances which we had just cited from St. Benedict, to show the
respect in which sentences of excommunication, pronounced by
ecclesiastical superiors, were held. Then the Bishop of Caho