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The reasoning is that the function of penance, in addition to being a sacrament of God's forgiveness, is also about re-uniting someone who's 'excommunicated' from the Church, which mortal sin brings about, into communion. Committing a sin (except one of the really bad ones) isn't an "excommunication" in the legal sense, but it does mean that taking communion without absolution would be another mortal sin. The point is that a priest who's schismatic or cannot licitly confect the Eucharist (which is a statement of unity with the Church as well as with God) cannot admit people to the table that he can't legally prepare. The legal term is "faculty," which is something that the Pope delegates through the hierarchy. The view is that giving absolution to people is an act of "binding and loosing" delegated by Christ to Peter first and then to the other apostles, along with the keys to the kingdom of heaven, and therefore that the Pope as the successor of Peter is the ultimate arbiter of sins being forgiven.
Of course, I should be clear that while penance is the main way in which Catholicism promises to re-unite sinners with God, it's not necessarily the only way (just the only way in which it can be done formally in order to admit people to communion). If you confess your sins accurately to a priest and do your penance, God promises forgiveness, even if you're not sure how bad you feel about your sins or if your only reason is that you're afraid of the possibility of Hell or you just don't want to be seen by Betty from the parish council asking for a blessing from Father instead of taking communion. God meets people at whatever motive gets them into the confessional.
However, my understanding is that canon law says that even a schismatic priest can provide absolution if someone is dying, because the principle of giving people an avenue for sacramental forgiveness before God is more important in that case than Church law. But someone in danger of death, if there's no priest available, can also make an "act of perfect contrition", which is essentially a personal prayer of repentence for your sins based on love for God in his goodness, and not any self-interested reason, which is obviously a high bar.
I think you could say a lot of the Protestant sinner's prayers are essentially a means of aiming to state perfect contrition -- "Lord, I admit I am a sinner. I need and want Your forgiveness. Your mercy and grace is a gift You offer to me because of Your great love, not based on anything I have done," which is a segment of a sinner's prayer I found in 5 minutes on Google, is not too shabby as a statement of perfect contrition, especially because it talks about the love of God as the ultimate source of divine grace. Ultimately Catholicism doesn't make judgments about who's contrition is perfect and whose is self-interested, because parish priest #3462 can't read minds, so the confessional procedure is the way in which it promises people can both receive God's forgiveness and be re-admitted to the table.
In terms of marriage, the point is that going to a Catholic priest who's not in communion to validate your marriage as a Catholic is an explicit step of having a marriage outside the Catholic Church. Catholics who have Protestant or "we got married in Vegas" weddings also fall under that. Protestants and non-Christians aren't held to the same standard, because they aren't Catholic. Catholics are required to marry under the requirements of canon law, like how a state can declare an unlicensed marriage void because they set the law. Protestants aren't bound because they were never subject to the canon law in the first place; California can't declare your marriage invalid because you got married in Vegas.
Good explanation. I think you touched on, though didn't explicitly mention, one of the teachings about the sacraments: they are emphasized because they work (which in turn we know because God promised that they would), but they are not necessarily the only path to salvation. God is not limited by the sacraments, and if he chooses to work in someone's life outside of them, great! But it can be hard to discern God's will, so the safe approach is to stick to the sacraments.
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