As Michael Davies explains in his introduction, the priesthood is being subjected to two attacks from within its own ranks today: that of the neo-Protestant like Hans Kung, whose book Why Priests? entirely rejects the Catholic position, although he is still permitted to function as an accredited teacher of Catholic doctrine; the other attack is more veiled, and comes in the form of consummately ambiguous terminology in the Agreed Statements of the Anglican-Roman Catholic International Commission, which make it possible to explain away the Catholic priesthood as being no different in essence from the Protestant ministry.