Ask a first-timer what set the Be Not Afraid Men’s Conference apart and the answer may surprise you. Not the speakers or the program, but the sound of 400 men singing the Ave Maria. 

On any given Friday night, the streets of inner Sydney belong to the revellers, the nightclub queues, the neon and the noise.  

For a young dietitian who spends his days talking to patients, a day of complete silence might seem the last thing he would choose. But Vincent Voccaro, 27, was among 120 men who did exactly that last weekend.