It's worse then "an excuse" IMHO. It's a counterfeit - at least two ways. It's illicit (I doubt it is a valid sacrament) and it deprives one of the non-sacramental benefits of private confession, which are HUGH, I'm series!
It must be very hard to be a secular priest. So many of them seem to fall into an almost Episcopalian do-it-yourself kind of Catholicism and almost to define themselves by idiosyncrasy and disobedience. I guess there are probably myriads of faithful priests out there. One tends to hear more about the ones who are just such good guys and so down to earth, you know, that they decide, entirely out of generosity and compassion, you understand, that we lay people really don't have to seek after holiness.
I agree, this type of penance service is definitely illicit and no parish should ever hold one. But I think you wrong when you say that most secular priests are disobedient. The disobedient priests, of course, get all of the press. They are the ones we hear about, as this article shows with its fawning coverage of the general absolution service. But I don't believe that disobedient priests outnumber good priests. I think there is a tendency among faithful Catholics to focus on the negative, to lament all of the problems in the Church and not to see the real good that is going on. I think that the tide has finally turned and that the Church is moving away from the heterodoxy that has plagued it over the last forty years. In fact, the more I see of my own parish, which is a just a regular, "Novus Ordo," parish, the more hopeful I am.