Priests may obtain from the General of the Servites the faculty to receive the faithful into the confraternity and to bless and invest with the scapular.
[3] This scapular is the symbol of the Confraternity of Our Lady of Sorrows, a body of the Catholic faithful associated with the Servite Order.
Groups of laypeople wishing to share in the life and spirit of the monks moved into areas surrounding the Servite monasteries.
Little changed in the association until the ascension of Pope Paul V who, in 1607, promulgated new regulations regarding the ordering of confraternities which were extant at the time.
It was at this point that the familiar small cloth devotional scapulars began to become the symbol of confraternities associated with Religious orders.