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There are several questions here, let me tackle two right now, and leave the rest for a later moment when I have some time to write and think more.
'Why did Jesus have to die if a mere human has the authority to forgive sin? '
That would be putting the cart before the horse. The mere human alone can't forgive sin, the authority comes from higher up. That priest is acting as a representative and physical human stand in for God.
'Why do you have to confess to anyone other than God?'
Call it good psychology. Why do people spend so much on psychologists and psychiatrists to unload things off their mind? People need to vent and get things out, or else things could stay inside and fester. Confessing to another person all the negative shit you do is a part of addressing it, like the Alcoholic who finally admits to others in AA that he has a problem. Once you admit to a problem, you can deal with it and move on. Confessing to God through just prayer is still too much of an internal dialog, there has to be an external human element to the process.
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