There was a time when cynical Roman Catholics of a conservative type (not that cynicism is only a conservative malady) used to taunt liberal Catholics, dissatisfied with one or another official Catholic teaching or rule, to become Episcopalians.

The implication was that Episcopalians, unlike Roman Catholics, are free to pick and choose the doctrines and moral teachings they happen to prefer, because Episcopalians have no real standards of faith and practice.

That attitude was always as insulting to Episcopalians as it was erroneous. And if we require recent proof of the latter, we need only read our daily newspapers or pay attention to reports on television, radio and the Internet regarding the recent meeting of Anglican primates (archbishops) in Tanzania.

Member-churches in the worldwide Anglican Communion have been embroiled since 2003 in a divisive controversy over the election and subsequent ordination of Canon V. Gene Robinson as bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of New Hampshire and the blessings of same-sex unions in a handful of other dioceses.

Robinson's election and ordination would not have caused a stir outside of New Hampshire if he were not also the first openly-partnered gay bishop in the Anglican Communion. At the risk of appearing to lapse into a form of cynicism criticized above, the adverb "openly" is a necessary modifier here.

At the risk also of rushing in where the proverbial angels fear to tread, this week's column offers a few tentative reflections on the present turmoil within the Anglican Communion.

First, the storm of controversy within Anglicanism should at least put an end to the "cynical" taunts of some conservative Roman Catholics. Doctrines and morals do matter to the Episcopal Church and to Anglicans generally, now almost 80 million strong.

It is simply calumnious to accuse our separated sisters and brothers in the Body of Christ, and specifically our Episcopal brethren, of having no sense of responsibility toward matters of Christian faith and morals. All the evidence is to the contrary.

Indeed, the recent meeting of Anglican leaders in Tanzania shows how seriously they do take such matters. The stakes are as high as they can be, namely, whether the worldwide Anglican Communion can hold together as a communion, in spite of the serious differences that have surfaced within it.

Second, it is unfortunate, however, that the immediate, but by no means only, issue dividing the churches of the Anglican Communion is homosexuality. Without diminishing its moral significance, it is hardly equivalent to the various affirmations of faith in the Nicene Creed and the Church's other historic creeds. Archbishop Desmond Tutu's successor in Cape Town, South Africa, Njongonkulu Ndungane, has recently said as much.

Third, had I been in a position to advise Gene Robinson in his run-up to election as the new bishop of New Hampshire, I might not have tried to dissuade him from accepting election (if only to make a point, however controversial), but I would have strongly urged him to forego his ordination as bishop --- for the sake of the unity of the Episcopal Church and the Anglican Communion.

It is not, after all, just a relative handful of dioceses and parishes that are currently engaged in secession-talk and follow-up action. The members of the Episcopal Church's House of Bishops split roughly 60-40 in approving Robinson's election and eventual consecration.

At least a few of the 40 percent in opposition might be described as ultra-conservatives, but not all of them, nor even most. One cannot simply dismiss their concerns about church unity as a cynical (there's that word again!) cover for an underlying homophobia.

Fourth, there is nothing to be said in support of the African bishops who have meanwhile been fishing in troubled waters, looking for additional Anglicans to bring under their canonical jurisdiction, whatever the gravely negative consequences for the unity of the Episcopal Church and of the worldwide Anglican Communion. Such behavior is pastorally reprehensible, whatever one's views on homosexuality and the consecration of openly-partnered gay bishops.

Indeed, a Roman Catholic might be tempted nowadays to reverse the taunting to which Episcopalians and Anglicans generally have been unfairly subjected in past decades: "If you cannot abide by the flexibility of practice found in the Episcopal Church, then why not leave and become a Roman Catholic? You'll have doctrinal and moral teachings and regulations to satisfy even the hungriest of you."

But just as Roman Catholic taunters were wrong about the Episcopal Church, so our hypothetical Episcopalian taunters would be wrong about the Roman Catholic Church.

We still have much to learn from one another. We are, in the end, brothers and sisters in Christ.

Father Richard P. McBrien is the Crowley-O'Brien Professor of Theology at the University of Notre Dame.