According to Scripture, Jesus Christ Granted the Apostles His Authority to Forgive Sins. In John 20:23 - Jesus says, "If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven. If you retain the sins of any, they are retained." In order for the apostles to exercise this gift of forgiving sins, the penitents must orally confess their sins to them because the apostles are not mind readers. The text makes this very clear. The successors of the Apostles are the priests in the Catholic and Orthodox Churches.
That's a load of crap. The Catholic and Orthodox churches can't even agree on who the real pope is. With all of their history and tradition they might have a clue. However, it just seems to cloud the argument. Besides, Jesus is the head of the church not some man and the Holy Spirit is given to every believer not a select few.