Take your relationship to the next level, Spanish bishops tell couples

Faced with a steeply declining number of church weddings, Spanish bishops have turned their eye to the virtual realm in the hope that a new video game will help entice more couples to the altar.According to the most recent figures, less than 18% of all weddings in Spain in 2024 – 31,462 out of 175,364 – took place in church. The numbers are dramatically down from 2007 when more than 55% of weddings happened in a Roman Catholic Church.The dwindling numbers, coupled with high divorce rates, have led the church to launch a number of initiatives in recent years designed to safeguard and promote the sacrament of marriage.Its latest campaign uses a video game, Level Up! A Two-player Game, to try to explore and explain the qualities on which marriage depends. The retro game, whose slogan is “El amor, la aventura más épica” (Love is the most epic adventure), features a young couple, Fran and Elena, going about their daily tasks and earning prizes as they learn about the importance of patience, generosity, modesty, integrity and empathy.The idea of the game is to provide players with real-life situations “such as problems at work, a stag do at a resort, a relationship with an ex-girlfriend” as they reflect on marriage. It is being rolled out in time for Valentine’s Day.“The campaign is also proactive, aiming to showcase the beauty of Christian marriage,” the Spanish bishops’ conference said in a statement. “It’s not primarily aimed at those already committed, but rather seeks to encourage couples who desire a stable commitment to consider a church wedding.”The idea was suggested by students at the Pontifical University of Salamanca and developed by a professional video game designer.“Presenting it as a game enters into dialogue with the gamified society in which we live and, at the same time, makes it possible and easy to reflect on the profound and essential elements in the giving of human love that are necessary for marriage that satisfies the longing for happiness of the human heart,” the conference said.The church in Spain has also resorted to more traditional methods in its quest to encourage people to get married. Six years ago, the bishops’ conference unveiled a premarital guidance course lasting two to three years that was designed to prepare couples for the long haul. The course was devised after the church decided that the 20 hours of lessons given to those wishing to make their vows before God weren’t nearly enough.Mario Iceta, then the bishop of Bilbao and the president of the conference’s subcommittee for the family and the defence of life, said his own experience of marrying couples had demonstrated the need for more groundwork.“You can’t prepare for marriage in 20 hours,” he said at a press conference in Madrid at the time. “To be a priest, you need to spend seven years in the seminary, so what about being a husband, wife, mother or father? Just 20 hours?”Divided into 12 areas – such as communication, fidelity, “the beauty of sexuality” and conflict resolution – the course was intended to “accompany, prepare and help young couples towards the matrimonial vocation”.That scheme found itself confronting the realities of the online world, counselling against pornography, which it said “commercialises and falsifies the beauty of the conjugal gift” and could become addictive.