"Of course not Archbishop. But are you angry with me?" I replied.

I've been in a bit of bother with the Church hierarchy over my interpretation of a report on church finance.

The report stated: "The Church faces the difficulty that whilst it needs to make new investment in its mission development, many parishes cannot afford their current ministry." I interpreted this as "Church in cash crisis". 

Not fair, according to the bishops. "There is no crisis," they cried from their grand houses, with expense accounts, chauffeurs, gardeners, secretaries and the rest. Are you kidding, your lordships? Have any of you actually been to a service in a country parish with six members, faced with an increased quota to fund clergy pensions? 

Maybe the bishops would have been happier if we'd asked Rowan Williams to write the story for us. Then no one at all would have understood what is happening in the Church today.

But no, unlike many commentators, I was not angry with Rowan Williams. Because in this lecture, for all its faults, its echoes of leftish ideology from the likes of the Glasgow Media Group, he resisted the temptation to take potshots at the media and to blame us for his many woes.

The temptation was clear in his opening paragraph: "Something that attracts the attention of a chap who doesn't care much about anything requires some professional skill in its presentation," he said, referring of course to the profession of journalism.  His Church is attracting critical comment, perhaps experienced by him as uncaring, largely because of its debate over homosexuality. The difficulties facing the few of us still reporting on the Church are inherent in writing about any institution in long-term decline. Religious affairs correspondents are never going to be popular. 

With his little joke at our expense out of his system, the Archbishop went on to make a cogent and powerful case for the place of ethics in the media. Much of it has been said before, but where he really made an impact on me was his reminder of why we are journalists in the first place. Just like priests, some people become journalists for the wrong reasons, but the majority go into it because they feel called to try to get to the bottom of what is true. 

Journalists have much in common with the Church, especially in the developments of new media. It is as if, while they are dealing with the Word made flesh, we are dealing with the world made virtual. The literally ethereal nature of the word in the ether, the internet, reflects the unearthliness of the Church's own Holy Spirit. 

There are many other areas we have in common.  In his efforts to remind us of the common good, the Archbishop should think more on this commonality. He is welcome to criticise the adversarial nature of the media, but should consider whether we are not merely reflecting the adversarial nature of all humankind, including some of his own colleagues, lay and ordained.

After all, he is not afraid to be adversarial himself where it matters to him, where he "cares", such as in condemning the Government for going to war against Iraq. But one characteristic of this Archbishop is that he refuses ever to think badly of an individual. So when something goes wrong, he has little choice but to blame an institution, the "media", the "government". For an Archbishop of Canterbury, he is far too forgiving, and should think a little more about the concept of Original Sin.

Nevertheless, it is the case that under the pressure of the daily deadlines, reading difficult reports clouded by bureaucratic jargon, any journalist can temporarily forget the ideals that drove them into their profession. Rowan Williams must surely be the same.