That's not the Catholic position. Christ has promised to work through the Church. So, for example, when Christ says to His Apostles, "If you forgive the sins of any, their sins have been forgiven them; if you retain the sins of any, they have been retained." (John 20:23), that tells us that when the bishop or priest absolve the penitent, then the Holy Spirit does as well. And when the bishop or priest retains a person's sins, then the Holy Spirit does as well. Similarly, in Matt 16:19, and 18:18, we see that what the Apostles bind, will be bound in heaven, and what the Apostles loose, will be loosed in heaven. That does not mean that the Holy Spirit is powerless or cannot work apart from the Church. It means that the ordinary means through which Christ and the Holy Spirit work upon the earth are through the Church.
-A8
Did he say that to the priests? No. In fact he abolished the priesthood.
If you accept that this statement is in fact a declaration that the Catholic priest has been granted the power to keep God from forgiving your sins by retaining them in confession, then you are arguing that God created a power for child molesters to threaten children with literal and unreversible eternal damnation by simply retaining their sins unless and until they do something wicked and nasty with the man to whom this power has been granted.
You really think the Priest has that kind of power over the laity? The laity has obviously been told that this is the case. I suspect that the priests who have molested children have used this power for that purpose.