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(LifeSiteNews) — A Carmelite priest and friar on Wednesday blessed former President Donald Trump with a relic of the True Cross, also giving him a brown scapular, a woolen sacramental worn around the neck that serves as a sign of protection from the Mother of God.
Video footage shared by the Catholics for Catholics X account shows Father Justin Maria, O. Carm., presenting Trump with the sacred objects after a rally in New York City.
Okay, so President Trump was enrolled into the Brown Scapular Confraternity by a Carmelite while the YMCA plays in the arena. Mary is working something here 😳
— Catholics for Catholics 🇺🇲 (@CforCatholics) September 20, 2024
“Sure, I love that,” Trump can be heard saying, although the rest of the audio is difficult to make out amid the loud background music.
After Fr. Maria gave Trump a blessing and offered him the scapular, Trump can be seen directing the priest to give them to an unidentified assistant.
LifeSiteNews attempted to reach Fr. Maria for further details and comment, but he is declining interviews at this time.
Relics of the True Cross are fragments of the cross upon which Jesus Christ was crucified and died in 33 A.D., and as such are considered by Catholics to be some of the most venerable relics in the Church.
The Brown Scapular of Our Lady of Mount Carmel was first given by the Blessed Mother to St. Simon Stock in 1251, intended as an aid to the salvation of those who wear it.
“This shall be a privilege for you and all Carmelites, that anyone dying in this habit shall not suffer eternal fire,” she told St. Simon Stock. The Catholic Church went on to extend this privilege to all the laity who are invested in this scapular and wear it perpetually. Father James Schultz has explained that the understanding behind this promise is that the one who wears the scapular invites the Blessed Mother into their life, to intercede for graces on their behalf.
Only Catholics can be invested in the scapular, but non-Catholics may still wear it. As a sacramental, it disposes those who make use of it to grace, including non-Catholics. Fr. Schultz cited as an example the story of a non-Catholic man in the 1940s who expressed a desire to become Catholic after a priest visited him in the hospital, called by a nurse who thought the man was already Catholic because of his scapular.
“This happens again and again,” Fr. Schultz remarked.
Editor’s note: This article was updated on September 25, 2024, at 11:18 a.m. ET.
Pledge to pray for the conversion of Donald Trump to the Catholic faith