No.
"Receive the Holy Spirit. Whose sins you forgive are forgiven them, and whose sins you retain are retained." --JesusIt's impossible to imagine Jesus giving the Apostles the power to forgive and retain sins, unless the penitent's sins were somehow communicated to the Apostles.
How would the penitent communicate his sins to them? By writing, or verbally? The former seems imprudent (and impractical in those days since most people were illiterate), at best.
That leaves telepathic communication, or infused knowledge from God. There is no evidence for the latter.
http://carm.org/John2023-priests-forgive-sins
Believe as you will. I don’t expect to convince you, so I won’t try. I will, however, ask what happened to all the sinners who didn’t have the benefit of confession for hundreds and hundreds of years? Why is there NO confessional in the New Testament? No Catholic has ever confessed every single sin. It’s impossible to even recognize all of our sins of commission, let alone omission, so what of all those unconfessed sins?
Don’t bother answering, those are rhetorical questions.
To everyone else I will point out that the confessional box has created an opening for unspeakable sin throughout the centuries. How many molested boys initially fell under the sway of pervert priests in the confessional box? Roman Catholic confession is an invention of those who want to lord over men. It’s an unbiblical burden on the souls of lost men who desperately need forgiveness. It’s a wicked invention!