Then, only if two of the apostles gather together will Christ be there. That is not retained by the people either.
Matter of fact, the only relationship that the ordinary peasant can possibly have with God and the salvation of their souls is submission to the Catholic church, regardless of each one having a soul created by God. 
The successors to the Apostles were/are the bishops. Their number spread quickly beyond merely 12, even during the timeframe bracketed by Acts, and to this day, bishops have the same powers as the Apostles, as their successors.
The early Church quickly saw the need to extend the ordained ministry beyond even this, however, and established the presbyterite, or priesthood, to aid the bishops in their tasks. The bishops are priests, too, of course, but, while they have all of the powers of the Apostles, simple priests are given only some of them. Priests cannot ordain others to the priesthood (only bishops can do that), and priests can only confer the Sacrament of Confirmation by delegation of their bishop.
Finally, the early Church established the order of the diaconate, originally to help the Apostles (bishops) in their tasks, and later to help both the priests and bishops.
There are several thousand Catholic bishops worldwide today, and something over 100,000 priests. While the priesthood could certainly stand to have higher numbers, the situation is - and always has been - hardly as numerically problematic as you suggest. In any event, from the beginning, the Church’s structure has always been “hierarchical,” with various ministries performed by people ordained to their tasks.