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Anglo-Saxon Laws of Compensation. Where a sin/crime is committed, in order to be saved you must not only feel sorry for what you did, but "compensate" - either with gold or your life- and then a holy man must declare you saved.
1) Commite the crime- Boromir trying to take the ring from Frodo.
2) Forgiveness- "I tried to take the ring from Frodo. I am sorry. I have paid."~The Departure of Boromir
3) Compensate- I doubt Boromir had the money for his compensation, but he does the other thing and he sacrifices his life to attempt a good deed by helping save Merry and Pippin.
4) Holy man, both Aragorn and Gandalf who could be considered "holy figures" in the story declare Boromir was saved as you pointed out in the essay.
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I don't want to impugn you or your sources, but I'm not aware of an Anglo-Saxon law-code that demands the endorsement of a holy man. Even the most piously worded, those of Alfred the Great and his grandson Athelstan, refer only to the fines payable. Perhaps someone has mistakenly conflated the secular legal process of fines and compensation and the separate spiritual process of confession, penance and absolution. The former rested with the temporal authority (the king) and the latter with the spiritual authority (the pope and his subordinates, and ultimately God). Since most crimes would be in breach of both spiritual and temporal law, reparations would have to be made to both authorities, but not under a single system.
For what it's worth, the Roman Catholic Tolkien would in my opinion be more likely to favour the Church process, whereby sin is realised and repented, confessed and then absolved (by an ordained priest, not just any holy man) after the performance of a suitable act of penance. In Boromir's case, he realises instantly that he has sinned, demonstrates immediate penitence and expiates his transgression by sacrificing his life for his friends. Aragorn as Boromir's rightful (although not yet official) lord and Gandalf as the spiritual emissary of the Valar, offer temporal and spiritual absolution respectively. The spiritual perspective on this sacrifice is neatly summed up by John 15:13: "Greater love than this no man hath, that a man lay down his life for his friends" (Vulgate "maiorem hac dilectionem nemo habet ut animam suam quis ponat pro amicis suis"). Logically, since no direct monetary payment is made to Denethor as ruler of Gondor or Aragorn as the heir apparent to the Gondorian throne,
weregild has clearly not been payed, and the crime is not one that calls for death under the Anglo-Saxon law codes. Furthermore Gondor has no such system, and I think that Tolkien would have required more internal consistency of his story as well as preferring the approach to forgiveness taken in his own denomination and faith. Anglo-Saxon codes are logical and sensible, but like any compensatory system they take little account of repentance.