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Through all the chaos of life, through the seismic shocks of American politics, the existential horrors of climate change, and the tyrannical return of low-waist jeans, there has been one constant that has brought me a sense of serenity through the years: the utterly atrocious design of the official website for the Roman Catholic Church.

I cannot emphasize enough how wonderfully ugly this website has been. The whole thing was sand-colored and -textured, mimicking parchment. In a box in the right half of the homepage, you could scroll through the pope’s calendar, the too-small, dark-brown text spaced unevenly in alternating opaque and translucent strips. There was a pasted-on cut-out photo of the pope, smiling and waving, emanating a kind of angelic light—the kind of special effect that would have elicited fist-pumps from web designers in 1995. This is because this website was designed in the ’90s and never touched again. I have occasionally shown it to people at parties over the years, and even after my friends were briefed on the situation, they always expressed shock and delight at the actual reveal. Although the site didn’t actually use papyrus, you came away with the impression that it did.

The old homepage of the Vatican is brown and old-fashioned, as described.

Screengrab from Vatican.va

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This would be reasonable enough for, say, a family-run deli or an association of local stamp collectors. But the Holy See, which governs the Catholic Church and the Vatican City, represents both a global church of more than a billion people and a literal country. The pope is an actual diplomat who plays a role in mediating global conflicts. The Vatican possesses some of the most famous art ever produced in the Western world; its assets are of incalculable value. And yet, it could not seem to hire a single developer with skills updated for the 21st century. I hoped this would never change.

So it was personally devastating when I woke up on Monday and discovered—this was big news on Catholic social media—that under the papacy of Leo XIV, the website had been redesigned. Gone are the textured wallpaper and random shadow effects, the imprecisely placed text boxes, and the awkwardly tacked-on Twitter icon that led nowhere. Tragically, the new website has tasteful sky blues, a high-resolution photo of the new pope, and an overall consistency of design and pleasing simplicity that doesn’t scream Windows 95.

The new website of the Vatican is blue, simple, and modern.

Screengrab from Vatican.va

But there’s good news here. With just a little poking around, you’ll easily find the bones of the old website. Sure, the homepage got a facelift, but the page for Pope Leo XIV is still no-frills bold black text on white background, with a floating, cropped photo of the pope in strangely menacing lighting. The entire Latin section of the website (the site is available in nine languages, including Latin) is in the old design. As are most of the pages for resources and other information. The content itself remains confusingly ordered: A full half of the FAQ page is dedicated to the Vatican pharmacy (if you click on the hyperlink, you get a 404 page) and instructions on how to fax in your prescription requests. And my very favorite element remains on the homepage: the medallion images of all the popes through history, with the option to scroll horizontally or filter by name or century.

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Right now, a pop-up on the site warns that its designers are still updating pages. We may, I fear, soon lose more of the site to modernity. So, quick—take a moment to relish the sight of one of the most famous institutions in the world still existing, digitally, in the heyday of Blockbuster, Pogs, and “The Macarena.” If you’re a person of the Christian faith, say a prayer for what we’ve lost. We commend the spirit of the old Vatican website and bid it eternal rest.