On Confession.

Jesus replied, “Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah, for this was not revealed to you by flesh and blood, but by my Father in heaven. 18 And I tell you that you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hades will not overcome it. 19 I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven; whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven.” 20 Then he ordered his disciples not to tell anyone that he was the Messiah.^[6] – Matthew 16: 13-20

²² And when He had said this, He breathed on them and *said to them, “Receive the Holy Spirit. ²³ If you forgive the sins of any, their sins ^[c]have been forgiven them; if you retain the sins of any, they have been retained.”
-- John 20: 22-23

Why do we confess our sins to a priest?  Why do we not just talk to God himself?

"Even if you do not confess, God is not ignorant of the deed, since he knew it before it was committed. Why then do you not speak of it? Does the transgression become heavier by the confession? No, it becomes lighter and less troublesome. And this is why he wants you to confess: not that you should be punished, but that you should be forgiven; not that he may learn your sin—how could that be, since he has seen it?—but that you may learn what favor he bestows. He wishes you to learn the greatness of his grace, so that you may praise him perfectly, that you may be slower to sin, that you may be quicker to virtue. And if you do not confess the greatness of the need, you will not understand the enormous magnitude of his grace."

— St. John Chrysostom

“Confession, believe it or not, is about happiness. It is about how to get rid of all those nagging feelings of guilt; how to be relaxed and at peace, knowing that God loves us. It is about preserving that peace and happiness throughout this life, with the cheerful expectation that it will continue in our next.”
-- Father Francis Randolph