The Brown Scapular

The devotion referred to by N. is, I believe, the Brown Scapular of Our Lady of Mount Carmel, which was, according to medieval legend, given to Saint Simon Stock (1165-1265) by the Blessed Virgin Mary. Saint Simon was the sixth Master General of the Carmelite Order and one of the first Englishmen to join the Carmelites upon their arrival in Britain. For Anglican Catholics, the devotion of the Brown Scapular, like all such other personal devotions to Our Lord's Mother, is solely pious opinion and not dogmatic or salvific in nature. Many Catholic Anglicans, like myself, firmly hold to the biblical, universal, and patristic doctrine of the Intermediate State or the Church Expectant in Paradise, which is concomitant with the Communion of Saints, while eschewing the particulars of the doctrina Romanensium de purgatorio condemned in Article XXII. One can strongly affirm the wonderful grace and virtue of Our Lady's intercession, as do all Western Catholics and Eastern Orthodox, without accepting the theological inferences implied by the Brown Scapular.