As usual, news media is far more concerned with excitement than accuracy and as a result spreads outright falsehoods. According to Reuters (and no doubt in short order the rest of the major news services), the Pope just said all non-Roman Catholic churches are not churches.

The document in question can be found on the Vatican website, in particular right here. Copypasta'd from my comments on someone else's blog;

I suspect, given Benedict's efforts to build toward Christian unity, that this is an internal, rather than an external, effort at correction.
*reads over the document in question*
Hm.
Very much sounds internal. I see a point of clarification that's been a point of contention for centuries, here, about the meaning of the "one church." Catholics say it's the Roman Catholic church, Protestants/Evangelicals say it's the body of all true believers (i.e. the small-c catholic, i.e. universal, church).

Hah. Of particular note, which the news ignored;

we believe they suffer from defects, are deprived neither of significance nor importance in the mystery of salvation. In fact the Spirit of Christ has not refrained from using them as instruments of salvation, whose value derives from that fullness of grace and of truth which has been entrusted to the Catholic Church

Emphasis mine. They seem to attribute Protestant salvation to grace coming through the RC church, or at least through grace that's been "entrusted to it," but that gives it a much different meaning that Reuters offers.

The very end clarifies the point, which seems awfully to be about the use and meaning of "church" as defined by the Vatican. They avoid the use of the word "church" because of theological terminology withing the RC church, including apostolic succession and the subsequent sacrament of the Eucharist, etc. They don't deny salvation or any such thing, just identification as large-C "Catholic" churches.

A point on which, I think, most Protestants/Evangelicals would agree. Our disagreement is on the value of apostolic succession and sacraments. Bloody MSM, spreading lies and slander on every topic they get their hands on. I don't even watch them any more and I still end up cleaning up the mess they cause.