But of course in actual Apostolic practice this is WHOLLY untrue. While I am sure that there are times when you approach God through Jesus directly, there are also a great many times that you approach Him through many different ways. For example, Roman Catholic clergy, Mary, any one of about 5,500 other saints, departed relatives, and any other departed you think might be able to put in a good word for you. All of these methods are valid in your Church to approach God.
One of my long standing criticisms of Apostolic theology is that the very intimacy you mention above is not possible because of all these middle men and women that you happily go through to approach God. Either the intimacy is controlled and managed by a live third party man here on earth, or a message is left on an answering machine in Heaven. Is that intimacy? :) Not in my book.
We confess to priests because Jesus told the Apostles to go and handle the forgiveness of sins, not simply look to Heaven and have them forgiven. The Sacrament of Confession is remarkably powerful and humbling. Jesus knew what He was doing. You oughta try it sometime. It is not limited to Catholics, you know. :)
The help of all Christians is normally, well, helpful; examples abound in Scripture of those Christians who are to help others. We are told to pray for others; our prayers for the departed are heard by God.
Does that mean that saying the Rosary is required for salvation? No. That is like saying that one type of food is required to eat in order to live. But you must have SOME kind of food. Jesus has given us help aplenty along our Via. But it’s up to us to use that help.