Below is Cardinal Zen's full statement to Cardinal Robert Sarah, which appeared first on his blog:
Card. Robert Sarah
Dear Eminence,
Pain and indignation invade my heart to hear such incredible news: they have forbidden private masses in St. Peter’s!?
If it were not for the restrictions imposed by the coronavirus, I would take the first flight to come to Rome and kneel before the door of Santa Marta until the Holy Father had that edict withdrawn.
It was the thing that most strengthened my faith every time I came to Rome: at exactly seven o’clock you enter the sacristy (I almost always met the saintly man, the archbishop who later became Cardinal Paolo Sardi), a young priest comes forward and helps me put on my vestments, then they lead me to an altar (in the Basilica or in the grottoes, it makes no difference to me, we are in St. Peter’s Basilica!). I think these were the Masses that, in my life, I celebrated with greatest fervour and emotion, sometimes with tears, praying for our living martyrs in China (now abandoned and pushed into the bosom of the schismatic church by the “Holy See” [this is what the document of June 2019 looked like, as it had no signatures and was not reviewed by the Congregation for Doctrine]).
It is time to reduce the excessive power of the Secretariat of State. Away with the sacrilegious hands from the common home of all the faithful of the world! Let them be content to play worldly diplomacy with the father of lies. Let them make the Secretariat of State “a den of thieves” but leave God’s devout people in peace!
“It was night!” (John 13:30)
Your brother
Joseph Zen, SDB