Round 1: Review of Diocesan Websites
In April 2019 I visited all 22 Diocesan Websites and looked for contact details and information about how to complain.
Outcome: Only the Diocese of Middlesbrough had a Complaints Policy online. If you live in Middlesbrough Diocese you can get clear instructions on how to complain and what to expect. Well done Middlesbrough Dioc
(Perhaps I should explain that Middlesbrough is my home diocese and they may have heard from me regarding Complaints Handling before... but that's a story for another time)
Outcome: Only the Diocese of Middlesbrough had a Complaints Policy online. If you live in Middlesbrough Diocese you can get clear instructions on how to complain and what to expect. Well done Middlesbrough Dioc
(Perhaps I should explain that Middlesbrough is my home diocese and they may have heard from me regarding Complaints Handling before... but that's a story for another time)
Typing "complain" or "complaints" in to 95% of diocesan websites gets you nothing. If you wish to complain you will have to guess how your diocese would like you to do it. This is not a great start. If Bishops wish to know about problems in their diocese perhaps they could do more to educate people on how to complain.
My next step will be to make contact with each diocese. Because it's 2019 not 1819 and we live in a modern post-Vatican II Church, I was rather hoping I might do this via email. That is not as easy as it sounds.
My next step will be to make contact with each diocese. Because it's 2019 not 1819 and we live in a modern post-Vatican II Church, I was rather hoping I might do this via email. That is not as easy as it sounds.
Let us start alphabetically with Arundel and Brighton. There is no contact information of any kind on the website homepage, nor is there a link to a "contact" page. However if I click "Bishop" and then "Read More" I am rewarded with email addresses for the Bishop and his Secretary.
Birmingham Archdiocese has lots of phone numbers online but no email addresses. I was only able to email their communications officer whose email I found on the Bishops Conference website. Same story in Brentwood. Same again in Leeds.
Eventually I was able to cobble together some kind of email address for almost every diocese. Three diocese (Portsmouth, Nottingham and Shrewsbury) have an online web form only.
So the short answer is this: If you are a Catholic and you have a complaint, it is unlikely that you will find instructions on how to complain on your local diocesan website. This is something that really needs to change.