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To seek and receive forgiveness of sins in the way that God prescribes is to get that forgiveness from God, even if the prescribed method uses mere humans as conduits for that forgiveness. No one disputes that Jesus said what He said in John 20, no? Well, then, the plain wording of the relevant text is hardly so obscure as to admit of alternate meanings. He said, flat out, that He would forgive sins through His Apostles, and breathed that power into them right then and there. He breathed on them precisely to show that He was imparting a character of his Godly power onto them. They had no power to forgive sins of themselves, but they did have it as soon as He imparted it to them. Why is it so hard for non-Catholics to take Him at His word here?

Jesus set up the Sacrament of Penance to interact with human agents, since He had no intention of "running" the Church in a direct, visible way. He certainly could have run it directly; no one would dispute that. But He didn't, choosing instead to return to the Father, and sending the Holy Spirit to guide the Church...through its human agents! "He who hears you hears Me" was said for a reason!

Many non-Catholics, in their zeal to ensure that Jesus "gets all the credit," ignore the obvious when it comes to things like John 20:21-23. The human element is flat-out denied. But this is excessive. Of course Jesus really has all the power and gets all the credit! Whatever the priests of His Church can do sacramentally for His flock is a derivative of His power! But, since He is not here in a recognizable human form ruling His Church directly from a visible throne, He knew that He had to empower certain members of His Church with a governing and ministerial authority to act in His stead. That's what it means when we say the the pope, for example, is the "vicar of Christ." He is His chief representative, that's all. He is not God, but he has been empowered by God with certain elements of the divine prerogatives, through a voluntary sharing of that power initiated and controlled by God.

Look at it this way: Jesus established that the promulgation of His Word would be left to human agents, and He also established that His written Word - both Testaments of Scripture - would likewise be created through flesh-and-blood, pen-wielding human beings, inspired by the Holy Spirit, yes, but true authors in their own right, too. These two situations where God clearly entrusts part of His divine prerogative should be a clue that there may, indeed, be others. Yes, the very imparting of His sanctifying grace is likewise accomplished through human agency, through the Sacraments. They don't "work" without His foundational cooperation. They impart no grace nor have any other kind of effect without His input to their efficacy. But, in all Sacramental actions, there is a co-operation between God and man, and His grace results. God is hardly diminished here! Man could do nothing with these Sacraments on his own authority. It is only through God that they are efficacious! Nevertheless, they are confected or effected through priestly (usually, marriage and - occasionally - baptism being the exceptions) interaction with God, because God so ordains it. To deny that He can do this, especially when many priestly functions are plain enough in Scripture, is to deny His omnipotence and to put "limits" on Him.

To sum up, God is the Author, Engine and Guarantor of the Sacraments, but He chooses to use mere sinful humans to dispense them. The Forgiveness of Sins is one of those Sacraments, and He undeniably gives this power - which had heretofore been reserved directly and solely to His action with no human intermediaries - to the Apostles in John 20:21-23. Christianity, in large measure, is an incarnational religion, tied-up often in physical things: water, bread, wine, oil, and so forth. These need human beings to interact with them. God can "handle" the sharing of the responsibility inherent in using these objects as vehicles of His grace. He's big enough to share the dispensing of His grace with even us sinners! And He has done so for nearly 2000 years. The fact that no one denied these things till nearly 1500 years into our present age should be mighty telling!