"Protestant churches yesterday reacted with dismay to a new declaration approved by Pope Benedict XVI insisting they were mere "ecclesial communities" and their ministers effectively phonies with no right to give communion... "they do not accept the theological notion of the Church in the Catholic sense" and "they lack elements considered essential to the Catholic Church."

-- London Guardian, 2007-07

Nothing new about it: "All who want to belong to the true and only Church of Christ must honor and obey this Apostolic See and the Roman Pontiff." -- Pope Pius IX, April 8, 1862

Some of the "essential elements" of Vatican dogma include accepting the Pope as God's own infallible spokesman, directing one's prayers to the "Queen of Heaven", and bowing down to graven images as he does.

"The theologians of the Church, deriving their teaching from these and almost innumerable other testimonies handed down long ago, have called the most Blessed Virgin the Queen of all creatures, the Queen of the world, and the Ruler of all." -- Pope Pius XII, Oct 11, 1954

"But we will certainly do whatsoever thing goeth forth out of our own mouth, to burn incense unto the Queen of Heaven, and to pour out drink offerings unto her, as we have done; we, and our fathers, our kings, and our princes..." -- Jeremiah 44:17

This self-proclaimed "true and only church" also requires confessing one's sins to an unmarried man who is more likely a pederast than a "father". None of them, including the High Priest himself, meets the scriptural qualifications:

"A bishop then must be blameless, the husband of one wife, vigilant, sober, of good behaviour... One that ruleth well his own house, having his children in subjection with all gravity; For if a man know not how to rule his own house, how shall he take care of the church of God?"

-- 1 Timothy 3:2-5