The question of Anglican orders is often thought to be a mere side issue in the dialogue between Canterbury and Rome. In one sense this is true: even were Rome to recognize the validity of Anglican orders, it would not bring about reunion, as the example of the Orthodox clearly shows. Yet in another sense the question is important; for it involves nothing less than the recognition by Catholics of the true ecclesial character of the Anglican Communion. It was recognition of this fact which led the editor of this journal to commission a full-length review article of the writer’s Stewards of the Lord and to select Fr John Coventry, S.J., one of England’s leading Catholic ecumenists, for this important task. The present writer is honoured by this selection and is happy to respond to the editor’s offer of space for a reply. The review article unhappily contains serious misunderstandings as well as misrepresentations of the book’s argument. These make a reply essential—not in any spirit of personal self-defence, but in the interest of the issue itself.