A video shared widely on social media in recent days shows Donald Trump receiving a brown scapular.
The 33-second video records an encounter between the Republican presidential nominee and a bespectacled figure in a brown habit in a nondescript corridor.
Filmed at close quarters, with the song “Y.M.C.A.” blaring in the background, the video shows the man in the habit presenting the brown scapular and a cross to the former president, following a moment of prayer.
Trump does not take the gifts, but gestures for them to be given to an aide.
The video, circulating since at least Sept. 19, is said to have been filmed backstage at Trump’s Sept. 18 rally in Uniondale, New York.
Reports identify the man in the habit as Fr. Justin Maria, O. Carm., who describes himself on social media as a “Carmelite friar and Catholic priest leading souls to Jesus through Mary.” The New York State-based priest reportedly presented Trump with a scapular and a relic of the True Cross.
Some social media posts have suggested the video depicts Trump being enrolled into the Brown Scapular Confraternity, a loosely knit global community of Catholics who wear the garment associated with the Carmelite order.
What exactly is a brown scapular? Are there other colors? And how does enrollment work?
What’s the brown scapular?
Tradition holds that on July 16, 1251, the Blessed Virgin Mary appeared to Simon Stock, the English prior general of the Carmelite order, which was formed on Mount Carmel in the Holy Land.
According to accounts written centuries later, Mary held a brown scapular in her hand and said to Stock: “Take, beloved son, this scapular of thy order as a badge of my confraternity and for thee and all Carmelites a special sign of grace; whoever dies in this garment will not suffer everlasting fire. It is the sign of salvation, a safeguard in dangers, a pledge of peace and of the covenant.”
Paintings depicting the apparition show the Virgin holding a garment far larger than the scapular we know today. That’s because the scapular was originally an apron-like garment worn by monks as they performed their daily work.
The monastic scapular consisted of a long piece of cloth with a hole in the middle. The wearer inserted their head through the hole, leaving the item draped down their front and back. The garment’s name is derived from the Latin scapula, meaning “shoulder,” because it was suspended from the monk’s shoulders. The monastic scapular became a constituent part of the Carmelite habit after the order moved from the Holy Land to Europe.
By the end of the 16th century, lay Catholics across Europe were wearing a miniature version of the monastic scapular, known as the devotional scapular. They were members of the Confraternity of Our Lady of Mount Carmel. By wearing the scapular, they believed they would receive Mary’s protection in their lives and be preserved from hell at their deaths. The scapular was also a sign of their affiliation with the Carmelites and their desire to live out the order’s spirituality in the secular world.
Today, the scapular consists of two rectangular pieces of woolen cloth bearing holy images and text, joined by bands. One piece of cloth is worn over the chest, the other dangles down the back.
The scapular is a sacramental, defined by the Catechism of the Catholic Church as a “sacred sign” bearing a resemblance to the sacraments. The Catechism says that sacramentals “do not confer the grace of the Holy Spirit in the way that the sacraments do,” but by the Church’s prayer, they “prepare us to receive grace and dispose us to cooperate with it.”
Are there other colors?
When Catholics refer to “the scapular,” they usually mean the Carmelite brown scapular. But scapulars come in many varieties.
They include the white scapular of the Most Blessed Trinity, the black scapular of the Seven Sorrows of Mary, the blue scapular of the Immaculate Conception, the red scapular of the Passion, the green scapular associated with Marian visions reported by the 19th-century French sister Justine Bisqueyburu, and the blue and black scapular of St. Michael the Archangel.
For those who don’t want to be limited to a single color, there is the fivefold scapular, comprising five of the most popular early scapulars (white, brown, black, blue, and red).
According to one count, there are 18 devotional scapulars approved by the Church, most recently the white scapular of St. Dominic, given the thumbs-up by Pope Pius X in 1903.
Somewhat confusingly, the Carmelite brown scapular may also be black.
How does enrolment work?
To be formally enrolled in the brown scapular, it’s not enough just to buy the garment and start wearing it — though many Catholics do just that as an act of piety and devotion, wearing a blessed scapular as a sign of their love for Mary.
But in the custom of being “enrolled” in the scapular, it is necessary to take part in a rite of blessing and enrolment, conducted by a deacon, priest, or designated representative of the Carmelite family, ideally as part of a public celebration.
The scapular is understood not only to confer privileges but also to entail commitments. While the precise responsibilities may vary, they generally include the daily recitation of parts of the Divine Office, regular fasting, and the practice of chastity according to one’s state in life.
The Carmelite priest’s prayer with Donald Trump was inaudible, but it seems unlikely he was conducting the rite of blessing and enrolment for two reasons. The first was that the prayer seemed too short, even for an abbreviated rite. The second is that Trump is not a baptized Catholic, a requirement for enrollment.
(Fr. Justin Maria has not commented on the encounter and is reportedly declining interviews.)
Non-Catholics are, however, permitted to wear the brown scapular, as a means of helping them to cooperate with grace and express devotion to Mary. So there was nothing especially unusual about the Carmelite’s gift of a scapular to Trump.
So about those “promises.” If I die wearing a scapular, does that mean I will automatically go to heaven?
“Whoever dies in this garment will not suffer everlasting fire,” the Blessed Virgin Mary is reported to have told St. Simon Stock.
Of course, the words are recorded in pious legend and history, and Catholics are not required to believe they were spoken at all. But even those who do believe are required to interpret them in light of Catholic doctrine — which doesn’t teach that a physical object can assure salvation, like some kind of charm.
Generally, the idea of being “in this garment” is taken to mean wearing the scapular as a faithful Catholics — with regular attendance at Sunday Mass, a prayer life, and frequent sacramental confession of sins.
And indeed, a person living the Christian life, steeped in the sacraments, can trust in their efficacy, and in the mercy of God for their salvation — regardless of whether they choose to wear the scapular.
