A woman on X had a message for Catholics who, in her estimation, were spending a little too much time in the confessional.
“Please stop taking over 30 minutes in the confession booth,” she wrote in the Aug. 12 post. “This isn’t a place for you to rant about your life, this is a confessions booth.”
Her solution was straightforward: Catholics should prepare and meditate on their sins beforehand “so it’s quick and efficient.” If they needed more time, she suggested, they should “book a spiritual consultation.”
The post might have disappeared into the usual internet churn. Instead, a Dominican priest jumped into the replies.
“The opinions of laymen on this topic is not worthy of consideration,” Father Gabriel Mosher said. “You don’t hear confessions. You lack a viable frame of reference. Move along.”
The initial post drew more than 220,000 views — and plenty of disagreement.
Some Catholics sympathized with the original complaint, describing the frustration of standing in a confession line while someone spends 20 or 30 minutes in the confessional. Others pointed out that a person returning to confession after decades, or someone dealing with a serious spiritual burden, may need more time.
Beneath the internet
