Spirituality: Listening to Those Voices who did not Speak

…In the consultation we were able to hear all voices, except the voice of those who did not speak, because they could not or did not want to. We also listened to the silence! We also listened to the empty chair! If one could not because we have failed to listen, we are called upon to verify what we have failed in. But if he did not want to, we must understand the reasons why. The truest way, which avoids easy shortcuts, is to create ‘places’ where everyone can speak; places of confrontation, where everyone feels they are heard. Truth in the Church does not depend on the tone and volume of statements, but on the consensus it is able to create precisely from listening to each other. On such a decisive issue as the ‘constitutively synodal Church’, we must not be afraid to confront each other: it is not our arguments that will convince us, but the Holy Spirit who leads the Church to the whole truth.