CV News Feed // In the opening session of the Synod on Synodality, Pope Francis reminded journalists that the synod is a “listening event” and asked them to avoid creating the kind of ideological pressure that, according to him, affected the work of previous synods.

He requested that journalists avoid biases and help people understand the true nature of the event.

“The Synod is not a parliament, it is something else; the Synod is not a meeting of friends to resolve some current issues or give opinions, it is something else. Let us not forget, brothers and sisters, that the protagonist of the Synod is not us: it is the Holy Spirit,” the Pontiff insisted.

I ask journalists to please make people understand this, so that they know that the priority is listening. When there was the Synod on the family, there was public opinion, formed by our worldliness, that it was to give communion to divorced people: and so we entered the Synod (with that bias.) When the Synod for the Amazon took place, there was public opinion, pressure, whether it was to do the viri probati (ordination of married men:) we entered (the synod) with this pressure. 

“This is why I ask you, communicators, to carry out your role well, correctly, so that the Church and people of good will – the others will say what they want – understand that the Church also has the priority of listening,” he said. “Passing this on: it’s so important.” 

The Pope also said that “if there is the (Holy) Spirit among us to guide us, it will be a beautiful Synod. If among us there are other ways of moving forward for human, personal, ideological interests, it will not be a Synod, it will be a more parliamentary meeting, which is another thing.”  

“The Holy Spirit,” he continued, “is the harmonious composer of the history of salvation. Harmony – let’s be careful – does not mean ‘synthesis,’ but ‘bond of communion between dissimilar parts’. If we in this Synod end up with a declaration that all are the same, all the same…without nuances, the Spirit is not there, it has remained outside. He creates that harmony which is not synthesis, it is a bond of communion between dissimilar parts.”

According to the Pope, “the Liturgy, the ancient tradition, speaks to us of the ‘sadness’ of the Holy Spirit, and one of the things that saddens the Holy Spirit most are empty words. Empty words, worldly words and – going a bit down to a certain human but not good habit – chatter.

Chattering is the anti-Holy Spirit, it goes against [Him]. It is a very frequent disease among us.”

Of this “disease”, Pope Francis warned that “if we do not let Him heal us from this disease, a synodal path will hardly be good.” 

“At least in here: if you don’t agree with what that bishop or that nun or that layman over there says, say it to his face. This is why it is a Synod. To tell the truth, not the chatter under the table,” he said.

“Then, I want to say that in this Synod – also to make room for the Holy Spirit – there is the priority of listening…and we must give a message to the press operators, to the journalists, who do a very good, very good job. We must give a communication that is the reflection of this life in the Holy Spirit.”

To journalists, who “do a very good job”, Francis proposed they acquire: 

an asceticism – excuse me if I speak like this to journalists – a certain fasting of the public word to safeguard this. And what is published must be in this climate. Some will say – they are saying it – that the bishops are afraid and that is why they don’t want journalists to say it. No, the work of journalists is very important. But we must help them to say this, this going in the Spirit. And more than the priority of speaking, there is the priority of listening.

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