Martín Muñoz Ledo Arriaga is a young Mexican who will participate as an altar boy in the reopening of the Notre de Paris Cathedral this weekend. In dialogue with ACI Prensa he comments that the opportunity “is an honor and a joy.”
Martín has lived in Paris since 2018. He obtained a degree in history at the Sorbonne University, where he is now also pursuing a doctorate on the diplomatic relations between Mexico and France, between 1821 and 1831.
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For some time he had been an acolyte in the parish of Saint Martin de Champs and the priest there, who is now one of the chaplains of the cathedral, invited him to participate in the reopening of Notre Dame, which will be attended by Donald Trump, president-elect of United States, Emmanuel Macron, president of France, among many other leaders from around the world.
This Saturday, December 7, the Notre Dame reopening ceremony will take place. Tomorrow, December 8 and the Solemnity of the Immaculate Conception, the altar will be consecrated in the first Mass in the cathedral after the reopening, for which the French designer Jean-Charles de Castelbajac has designed 700 chasubles.
Martín Muñoz Ledo is a member of the so-called “gran clero” or “large clergy” of the Cathedral of Notre Dame, which brings together about 30 acolytes in total, and shares that he has been “altar boy for almost 18 years, since he was 6” .
At the reopening of Notre Dame this Saturday, he explains “I am going to lead the banners of each parish in the entrance procession. And on the day of the Mass, Sunday the 8th, I will be accompanying the relics of Saint Catherine Labouré and two other French saints; And then I will do the usual with some liturgical objects in the offering procession.”
The young man originally from Mexico City also tells ACI Prensa that “there are no people from other countries in the liturgical team, except for a Belgian and me. There is no one who is not European that I have seen.”
Regarding the fire that occurred in April 2019, Martín remembers that day with “astonishment. I was studying and a friend came in and told us that Notre Dame was burning. There was a very dense cloud of smoke. There were no flames yet, but then they were seen. It was surprising, impressive. People were scared, in panic. It was a moment that stopped time in Paris.”
Regarding the place of the Virgin Mary in the lives of the French, the Mexican altar boy points out that it could be said that there is a “Catholic culture, but many do not practice the faith. At most they were baptized and received some other sacrament, but not much more.”
On the other hand, he continues, Catholics who practice their faith “do have a very great devotion to the Virgin Mary, above all the traditionalists. There are many popular songs and processions. Yes, there is a great devotion to the Virgin.”
Martín Muñoz Ledo also highlighted that on Thursday, December 12, he will participate in Notre Dame in “the Mass for Our Lady of Guadalupe, although I have not yet been assigned the precise role I will have.”
Walter Sánchez Silva
I have been a husband since 2008. My wife and I have three children here and one who went to heaven in 2023, before he was born. Since I joined ACI Prensa in 2005, I have had the opportunity to cover various events of the Catholic Church. Among them, the World Youth Days in Cologne, Madrid and Rio de Janeiro and the apostolic trips of Pope Benedict XVI to Mexico and of Pope Francis to South Korea. I have been sent to the Vatican to cover the Family synods, in 2015; of the Amazon, in 2019 and that of Synodality, in 2023. I closely follow the situation of the Catholic Church in Nicaragua, which suffers persecution from the dictatorship of Daniel Ortega, as well as current ecclesiastical events in the region.