I am hoping that you are right and also that the Church may consider REQUIRING, as a condition of lifting the excommunication, such refutation of previous public positions as publicly as the sins were publicized by the sinner.
Actually, the Church isn’t really free NOT to require public repudiation of evil advocacy that has been public.
This is why Teddy Kennedy should NOT have had a Catholic funeral. Although canonists argued that, because there was a priest around at the time of death, that fulfilled the requirement that the deceased give some “sign” of the practice of the Faith, people with common sense know that the priest was one of the usual Kennedy toadies—a Mafia priest.
If I had heard Teddy’s confession, I would have required him to publish a thorough repudiation of his pro-murder advocacy as a condition of absolution. Now, either the Mafia priest did this, and Kennedy refused, and was refused absolution. (And the priest can never say a word about it.) Or, much more likely, the Mafia priest simply pretended, along with the entire Kennedy family, that support for abortion is a non-issue, gave Kennedy “absolution,” and dispatched Kennedy to Hell.
Cardinal O’Malley, of course, could hardly contain his giddiness at the chance to mingle with all those Kennedys, and President Obama!!!—slobber, slobber, pant, pant! And Domingo! His blog post on the funeral is stomach-turning.