Maxime is 22 and holds a position he invented himself: “altar boy manager”.
In his parish, the young man with Down syndrome helps train new altar servers. He has served at the altar since his First Communion. So when he learned that Pope Leo XIV was going to celebrate Mass at the Place de la Concorde in Paris, he didn’t dream of a greeting or a photo. He thought of something more his own: putting on the alb and getting to work.
He and five other young people from the Jérôme Lejeune Foundation—Théophile, 11; François, 28; Foucauld, Timothée and Jérôme—signed a letter making that request. Théophile handed it to the Pope at an audience in June. The Vatican’s answer was yes. On September 26, the six served alongside some 400 altar servers from all over France, before a crowd that some estimates put at 800,000 people.
Jérôme Trillard explained it on camera to C News: people like him should not be excluded. That day, at the altar, there was no need to say it again.