Every Catholic is familiar with the brown parchment background and tacky image based design – yep, it’s the Vatican online. Evokes a sort of nostalgia in us all, the world was a different place back when this first debuted.

However, whilst it may be familiar it is certainly not suited for purpose, or suited for the twenty-first century. You’re probably wondering why, after over a decade of putting up with the Vatican’s current design, I’m making a point now? Well, it was this image that struck a chord with me…

Go ahead and click the image to visit; it works. It’s a play on the White House’s website after it’s Barack Obama redesign, a good example of web design how it should be done. You’re probably thinking “well, the White House website is for a country!” but let’s face it, Catholicism is like a country. Our capital is Vatican City, our head-of-state is Benedict XVI, our government ministers are the ordained folk and our citizens make up about one-fifth of the world’s population. Don’t forget, as well, that the Vatican exerts an enormous influence politically. When you look at it like that, we’re a much bigger country than the USA yet we have an awful website!

Now, I’m not saying that the Vatican needs to start offering Confessions online, I’m simply saying that we need a website that is fit-for-purpose. The current Vatican website aged quickly – they need a website that will stand the test of time.

Situations

To illustrate this point, let’s consider the following situations…

• I’m a Catholic looking for information about St. Peter’s.
• I’m a prospective Catholic, thinking of converting.
• I’m a person who wants to follow updates.
• I’m completing a project about Catholic attitudes towards euthanasia.

Catholic looking for information about St Peter’s

So, I’m going to the Holy See and want to get some information about St Peter’s Basilica. I hit up Vatican.va and click English. Lucky for me there’s a link on the homepage!

I click on it, and I’m taken to a site titled Basilica Papale di San Pietro – this is despite making the language choice English at the start of your visit. So, I hunt down an English button. The design of the site has completely changed so it takes a while but eventually I find it… It’s in Italian, but recognisable because I’ve studied a romance language.

Turns out, however, that I can’t click on it. There’s no hand, just a text select cursor. Clicking does nothing.

So, I’ve wasted 10 minutes and I’ve not found out anything. Back to the homepage, in the bottom-left hand corner there’s another promising link…

I’m taken to a page that, again, looks different to the rest of the Vatican site and the page on St. Peter’s Basilica I’ve just visited – clear branding issues here. Anyway, there’s a link to St Peter’s but guess what…?

…it doesn’t work! I can’t click it.

Yet more time wasted, I’m leaving the Vatican.va website… I’ll look elsewhere.

I’m a prospective Catholic, thinking of converting

At the moment, I’m non-religious, yet lately I’ve had a growing curiosity about Catholicism and I’d like to find out how I can ‘convert’. The most logical place to start is the Vatican website, I choose English as my language.

For a start, I’m a little confused about the abbreviations “W.Y.D” and “S.V.C” – I know nothing about Catholicism, don’t forget – but I carry on. I can’t see anything on the homepage about converting, so I think I’ll try the “New Search Engine” which has been ‘new’ for about ten years now.

I search for “become Catholic”. The results don’t seem promising. “convert” – no; “join” – no, “baptism” – no. Hmm. What’s going on? Interestingly, the Vatican’s search is powered by Google Search Appliance meaning that it can handle some pretty advanced (normal language) queries. However, because the search box is so small on the homepage, I’m only entering one word queries.

N.B. I know that to become a Catholic, your first port of call should be your local Catholic Church. But this is the twenty-first century… people are workaholics, can they really find time? Not only that, but what if you’re not that into the idea of Catholicism to visit a church yet; you feel that you might be pressurised into joining there and just want to get some information on your terms. And, what if you just don’t know that you should visit a church first? What if you don’t know where your local church is, so you’re visiting the Vatican to find it? The Church of England’s website has a ‘church finder’.

The point here is that there’s no information at all; no page telling you to visit your local church. I’ll look elsewhere.

I want to follow updates

Like many people today, I’ve a feed reader full of interesting news stories and I’d love to have the Pope in there. (Self-promotion: you can put Catholic Flux in your feed reader today by subscribing for free!) What I’d really like is something that allows me to follow the movements of the Holy Father; who he’s meeting, what he’s doing, where he’s going? Number10.gov.uk is really good for this, it lets you see what the PM’s up to in his daily duties. My only complaint is that it’s updated a little too frequently for my liking. But yeah, that’s for a different blog post.

I start my quest at Vatican.va in English, as before. There’s a link on the homepage for Latest Updates, that’s just what I’m looking for!

But, when I get there I’m presented with a list of boring updates. No pictures, no videos… just text. This is despite the Vatican having Photo.va and their own YouTube channel. Not only that, I can’t see the familiar orange feed icon in my title bar or anywhere on the page. I’ll look elsewhere.

I’m completing a project about Catholic attitudes towards euthanasia

In this case, I’ve actually found what I was looking for because I knew what I was looking for – the Catechism of the Catholic Church. I’ve found a passage in there that I’d like to share it with my classmates on Facebook who are having trouble. A share button, like the one to the left hand side of this blog post, would go down a treat. I’ll have to leave the Vatican website, to open Facebook, to give my classmates the link.

What have we learnt from this?

All of the four situations above led to the user ultimately leaving the Vatican site to find their information (or interact with others) elsewhere. You might be wondering what is wrong this? The Vatican.va site should be the most authoritative site on the Internet for Catholicism resources. It’s not good enough to have people searching elsewhere, because anyone could publish anything online and say “this is what the Catholic Church says”.

Moreover, this is the age of the Internet. Get with the times, please, Benedict! It is a great tool for communication, which the Church could really exploit for promoting the message of Christ throughout the world. Alas, they do not.

Unfortunately, I can’t see anything being done about it soon. I think the only thing we can do is pray.

Labels: techology, vatican