The National Catholic Register, a flagship organ of the conciliar sect’s “conservative” wing, reports on a viral social-media dispute regarding the acceptable duration of the sacrament of Penance. A laywoman on X (formerly Twitter) complained that penitents exceeding thirty minutes in the confessional hinder others; a “Dominican priest,” “Fr.” Gabriel Mosher, arrogantly dismissed the laity’s opinion as unworthy of consideration. “Fr.” Jay Scott Newman, a “pastor” in Greenville, South Carolina, and “Fr.” Luke Mary Fletcher, a “Franciscan Friar of the Renewal” attached to the Fatima shrine in Asbury, New Jersey, then weighed in, admitting that the Church provides no time guidelines and that the sacrament’s administration varies wildly between parishes, shrines, and retreats. Newman candidly acknowledged a “half century of complete liturgical incoherence” affecting every sacrament. The entire spectacle reduces the *tribunal of mercy* to a bureaucratic queue-management problem, exposing the fact that the conciliar sect has lost the very theology of the sacrament, its valid ministers, and the sense of sin itself.
The Invalid Ministry Simulating the Tribunal of Christ
The fundamental reality omitted by the Register—and by every “cleric” quoted therein—is the invalidity of the New Rite of Ordination (1968) and the New Rite of Penance (1973). The men cited—Mosher, Newman, Fletcher—operate within the novus ordo framework, ordained under the deficient form of Paul VI which excised the essential language of the priesthood (ut offerre possis sacrificium… propitiatorium). As Pius XII defined in Sacramentum Ordinis (1947), the form must signify the sacrificial power; the Paul VI rite signifies only a “presidency” over a community meal. Consequently, these men lack the character sacerdotalis and the potestas iurisdictionis to bind and loose. When “Fr.” Newman speaks of hearing confessions for “25 years,” he describes a simulation, not the sacrament. The faithful kneeling before them receive not absolution, but a placebo administered by a functionary of the conciliar sect. The debate over “30 minutes” is thus a debate over the duration of a theatrical performance, not the administration of a divine judgment.
Reduction of the Judicial Sacrament to “Pastoral Counseling”
The article reveals the Modernist metamorphosis of Penance from a judicial act into a therapeutic dialogue. The Council of Trent (Sess. XIV, Can. 6) anathematizes those who deny that the sacrament was instituted by Christ as a tribunal where the priest acts as judge (tanquam iudex), not merely a counselor. “Fr.” Newman explicitly contrasts the sacrament with “pastoral counseling or spiritual direction,” yet his praxis—allowing the penitent to “name sins” in 90 seconds—reduces the integral confessio mandated by Trent (Sess. XIV, Can. 7) to a mere laundry list. The penitent “usually wants to provide the context, but all the confessor needs is the text,” Newman claims. This is heretical minimalism. The judge must inquire into circumstances that change the species of the sin (e.g., adultery vs. simple fornication, theft of sacred vs. profane goods). To discourage the “backstory” is to discourage the materia proxima of the sacrament—the specific sins with their qualifying circumstances—rendering the confession potentially invalid for lack of matter. The “Fr.” Fletcher’s reverence for the “big moment” of a returning penitent is pure sentimentality, substituting ex opere operato grace with ex opere operantis emotional experience.
Liturgical Incoherence as the Fruit of the Conciliar Revolution
“Fr.” Newman’s admission—“We are at the tail end of a half century of complete liturgical incoherence in the life of the Church… It’s weddings, baptisms, confirmations… It’s everything. Confession is no exception”—is a stunning indictment of the anti-church he serves. This “incoherence” is not a bug; it is the feature of the Novus Ordo revolution. The 1973 Ordo Paenitentiae introduced three “rites,” including the heretical “Rite for Reconciliation of Several Penitents with General Absolution” (Rite 3), which Newman admits was abused “in circumstances that did not meet the Church’s requirements.” This is the direct application of the Modernist principle condemned by St. Pius X in Lamentabili Sane Exitu (Prop. 53, 54): “The organic structure of the Church is subject to change… Dogmas, sacraments, and hierarchy… are merely modes of explanation and stages in the evolution of Christian consciousness.” The “roller-coaster ride” Newman describes is the inevitable chaos when the lex orandi is severed from the lex credendi. The Syllabus of Pius IX (Error 23) condemns the idea that “Roman pontiffs and ecumenical councils have wandered outside the limits of their powers… and have even erred in defining matters of faith and morals.” Yet here a “pastor” of the sect admits the governing authority has produced fifty years of sacramental anarchy.
The Fatima Connection: Shrine of the Masonic Psy-Op
It is providentially symbolic that “Fr.” Fletcher serves as “co-chaplain of the National Blue Army Shrine of Our Lady of Fatima.” The article treats this as a credential of orthodoxy. From the perspective of integral Tradition, it is a mark of the Masonic operation detailed in the theological objections to Fatima. The “Miracle of the Sun” was a “mass optical manipulation… and mass panic and autosuggestion.” The “conversion of Russia” narrative serves ecumenism with schismatic Orthodoxy, not Catholic conversion. A “friar” attached to this shrine, hearing confessions in a “retreat” setting where “people make a deeper or general confession,” is operating at the epicenter of a disinformation strategy designed to divert the faithful from the true crisis: the Modernist apostasy within the structures of the Church (St. Pius X, Pascendi). The “Blue Army” spirituality promotes the hyper-act of consecration over the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, precisely the Jansenist rigorism and spectacular substitution condemned in the Fatima critique.
Canonical Anarchy and the Death of Jurisdiction
The article notes: “Neither the Catechism of the Catholic Church nor the Code of Canon Law specifies whether a confession should last five minutes, 10 minutes or 30 minutes.” It cites the 1983 Code (Canon 986). This is the law of the anti-church. The 1917 Code (Canon 879 ff.), binding on the true Church, treats the sacrament with the gravity of a judicial process. The 1983 Code’s vagueness reflects the conciliar shift from ius divinum to pastoral adaptation. Furthermore, the “priests” exercise no true jurisdiction. As Bellarmine teaches (De Romano Pontifice), a manifest heretic loses jurisdiction ipso facto. The “bishops” of the conciliar sect, adhering to the heresies of Vatican II (religious liberty, ecumenism, collegiality), are manifest heretics; their “priests” receive no jurisdiction from them. Canon 188.4 (1917 Code) declares an office vacant by “public defection from the Catholic faith.” The “pastors” Newman and Fletcher hold office in a structure that has publicly defected; their “faculties” are null. The queue outside the confessional is a queue for a nullity.
Subjectivism and the Dictatorship of the Laity
The viral post originated with a laywoman demanding “efficiency.” “Fr.” Mosher’s reply—“The opinions of laymen on this topic is not worthy of consideration… You don’t hear confessions. You lack a viable frame of reference. Move along.”—reveals the clericalism of the sect. But the deeper error is the inversion of the supernatural order. The laywoman thinks like a Protestant: confession is a transaction to be optimized. The “priest” thinks like a bureaucrat: his time is his own. Neither thinks like a Catholic: the priest is alter Christus, the judge of souls, bound by the seal and the duty to save souls in periculo mortis, regardless of the clock. Pius XI in Quas Primas teaches that “Peace is only possible in the kingdom of Christ” and that Christ’s reign extends to “all men… individuals, families, or states”. The confessional is an outpost of that Kingdom. The conciliar “confessional” is a kiosk in the kingdom of man.
The “Risen Lord” vs. The Judge of the Living and the Dead
The article concludes with Newman’s goal: “a personal experience of the Risen Lord.” This is the resurrectionist, Protestantized theology of the Novus Ordo. The true end of Penance is not an “experience” but the remissio peccatorum and the restoration of gratia sanctificans before the Tribunal of the Just Judge. The priest says: “Ego te absolvo a peccatis tuis in nomine Patris, et Filii, et Spiritus Sancti.” He does not say, “Have a nice experience of the Risen Lord.” The shift from objective sacramental reality to subjective religious experience is the essence of Modernism (Pius X, Pascendi: “The Modernist… makes the religious sense the foundation of faith”). The Register article, in its banality, documents the triumph of the abomination of desolation in the holy place: invalid ministers, invalid rites, a clueless laity, and a “theology” of time-management. Quomodo facta est meretrix civitas fidelis! (How is the faithful city become a harlot! – Isa. 1:21).
Source:
Is 30 Minutes Too Long for Confession? (ncregister.com)
Date: 18.08.2026