IT comes as a shock: the Archbishop of Canterbury is no great fan of Footballers' Wives. What's more interesting though is the response of the Head of ITV to the news that the Primate of All England regards one of his most popular programmes as "a parable of all that is wrong with morality in Britain today."

Nigel Pickard, ITV's Director of Programmes, replied: "I'm delighted the Archbishop is broadening the programme's audience..."

OK, Nigel, we can take a bit of routine snide from a dumbed-down media mogul. But it's what you go on to say that's truly revealing: "Footballers' Wives is not aimed at the Archbishop."

The Director of Programmes could not have made his point more clearly if he had said, "We don't expect toffs like the Archbishop to watch Footballers' Wives. We have a loyal audience of several millions of oiks out there and it's at them the programme is aimed."

This is patronising in the extreme. Sheer elitism. The implication is that some programmes - intelligent documentaries, high class natural history series etc - are for nice, middle-class people, but that, of course, there have to be the statutory tons of crap put out for the yobs.

One can picture the scene: on the one hand here is the Archbishop of Canterbury and his dear lady wife sitting in their drawing room sipping a glass of claret and watching Trevor Macdonald as he offers his intelligent analysis of the week's news; and here are representatives of ITVs mass audience in their baseball caps, sprawling over takeaway pizzas and swilling fizzy lager from the can while glued to Footballers' Wives.

If I were a devotee of Footballers' Wives, I would be more offended by the dismissive, patronising attitude of the Director of Programmes than by anything said by the Archbishop. The Head of ITV then tried to hit the Archbishop squarely in the chops by raising the subject of religion. He said: "We have to question whether 104 hours of religious programming each year is excessive. We are asking whether these arcane regulations are something we want to be stuck with."

As a Church of England priest, I would be delighted if ITV would abolish its religious programmes altogether. What are they, after all, except phoney singalongs, Saturday night cheap variety shows given a gloss of religiosity? You might say ITV offers us in the way of a spiritual experience something like Stars in Their Eyes with soft focus sentimentality. Or else they occasionally give us documentaries which seem to have as their main purpose the complete rubbishing of the Christian faith.

You've seen them all before of course: all those allegedly "pioneering, radical, trailblazing, controversial" programmes claiming that Jesus never died on the Cross but got down at the end of Good Friday and went to live in India with Mary Magdalene. Or that he had a homosexual relationship with one of the 12 disciples.

What does the exciting Nigel Pickard have in store for us? "More imaginative multi-faith programmes including audience debates..." O please, not again! Not further samples of the blind leading the blind. Not more of those anodyne, neutered religious talk programmes in which "studio experts" are given the freedom to say anything they like to debunk Christianity, but don't raise an eyebrow in criticism of Islam. ITV wouldn't dream of seeking out a learned, devout Christian theologian - yes, there are still a few left - to offer an intelligent introduction to the faith.

I'll tell you: when it comes to ITV's religious output, I prefer Footballers' Wives.