The Blue Scapular Prayer Book

23 Matulewicz, also asked the Theatines in Rome for authorization to invest the faithful with the Blue Scapular. The permission was granted him on December 1, 1911. On June 3, 1992, Fr. Donald Petraitis, MIC, then the Superior General of the Marians, obtained from the Superior General of the Theatine Order a perpetual permission for himself and his successors to bless and confer the Scapular of the Immaculate Conception of the Most Blessed Virgin Mary. This permission was reaffirmed on March 19, 2005, by a special letter of the Theatine Fathers’ General Superior addressed to the Superior General of the Marians and to the General Promoter of the Association of Marian Helpers. By another letter of July 16, 2008, the Superior General of the Theatines gave the Marian Fathers’ Superior General a perpetual permission to sub-delegate priests, both Marian and non-Marian, to bless and confer the Blue Scapular, according to canon 1169 of the Code of Canon Law.* Thus, according to their centuries-long tradition, the Marian Fathers promote among the faithful the Blue Scapular, which is the external * View the official permission given by the Theatine Fathers to the Marian Fathers, Appendix, Statutes, p. 13.