Three catechisms on Original Sin. This is an important thing to understand especially since 1. baptism covers original sin and 2. we are born into this state so even an infant is in need of baptism.
The Baltimore Catechism
39. Q. Who were the first man and woman?
A. The first man and woman were Adam and Eve.
40. Q. Were Adam and Eve innocent and holy when they came from the hand of God?
A. Adam and Eve were innocent and holy when they came from the hand of God.
43. Q. Did Adam and Eve remain faithful to God?
A. Adam and Eve did not remain faithful to God; but broke His command by eating the forbidden fruit.
44. Q. What befell Adam and Eve on account of their sin?
A. Adam and Eve on account of their sin lost innocence and holiness, and were doomed to misery and death.
45. Q. What evil befell us through the disobedience of our first parents?
A. Through the disobedience of our first parents we all inherit their sin and punishment, as we should have shared in their happiness if they had remained faithful.
47. Q. What is the sin called which we inherit from our first parents?
A. The sin which we inherit from our first parents is called original sin.
50. Q. Was any one ever preserved from original sin?
A. The Blessed Virgin Mary, through the merit of her Divine Son, was preserved free from the guilt of original sin, and this privilege is called her Immaculate Conception.
Catechism of Pope Pius X
32 Q. Is man free in his actions?
A. Yes, man is free in his actions and each one feels within himself that he can do a thing or leave it undone, or do one thing rather than another.
33 Q. Explain human liberty by an example.
A. If I voluntarily tell a lie, I know that I could have left it unsaid or that I could have remained silent, and that, on the other hand, I could also speak differently and tell the truth.
34 Q. Why do we say that man was created to the image and likeness of God?
A. We say that man was created to the image and likeness of God because the human soul is spiritual and rational, free in its operations, capable of knowing and loving God and of enjoying Him for ever — perfections which reflect a ray of the infinite greatness of the Lord in us.
35 Q. In what state did God place our first parents, Adam and Eve?
A. God placed our first parents, Adam and Eve, in the state of innocence and grace; but they soon fell away by sin.
36 Q. Besides innocence and sanctifying grace did God confer any other gifts on our first parents?
A. Besides innocence and sanctifying grace, God conferred on our first parents other gifts, which, along with sanctifying . grace, they were to transmit to their descendants; these were: (1) Integrity, that is, the perfect subjection of sense . reason; (2) Immortality; (3) Immunity from all pain and sorrow; (4) A knowledge in keeping with their state.
37 Q. What was the nature of Adam's sin?
A. Adam's sin was a sin of pride and of grave disobedience.
38 Q. What chastisement was meted out to the sin of Adam and Eve?
A. Adam and Eve lost the grace of God and the right they had to Heaven; they were driven out of the earthly Paradise, subjected to many miseries of soul and body, and condemned to death.
39 Q. If Adam and Eve had not sinned, would they have been exempt from death?
A. If Adam and Eve had not sinned and if they had remained faithful to God, they would, after a happy and tranquil sojourn here on earth, and without dying, have been transferred by God into Heaven, to enjoy a life of unending glory.
40 Q. Were these gifts due to man?
A. These gifts were in no way due to man, but were absolutely gratuitous and supernatural; and hence, when Adam disobeyed the divine command, God could without any injustice deprive both Adam and his posterity of them.
41 Q. Is this sin proper to Adam alone?
A. This sin is not Adam's sin alone, but it is also our sin, though in a different sense. It is Adam's sin because he committed it by an act of his will, and hence in him it was a personal sin. It is our sin also because Adam, having committed it in his capacity as the head and source of the human race, it was transmitted by natural generation to all his descendants: and hence in us it is original sin.
42 Q. How is it possible for original sin to be transmitted to all men?
A. Original sin is transmitted to all men because God, having conferred sanctifying grace and other supernatural gifts on the human race in Adam, on the condition that Adam should not disobey Him; and Adam having disobeyed, as head and father of the human race, rendered human nature rebellious against God. And hence, human nature is transmitted to all the descendants of Adam in a state of rebellion against God, and deprived of divine grace and other gifts.
43 Q. Do all men contract original sin?
A. Yes, all men contract original sin, with the exception of the Blessed Virgin, who was preserved from it by a singular privilege of God, in view of the merits of Jesus Christ our Saviour.
44 Q. Could not men be saved after Adam's sin?
A. After Adam's sin men could not be saved, if God had not shown mercy towards them.
45 Q. What was the mercy shown by God to the human race?
A. The mercy shown by God to the human race was that of immediately promising Adam a divine Redeemer or Messiah, and of sending this Messiah in His own good time to free men from the slavery of sin and of the devil.
46 Q. Who is the promised Messiah?
A. The promised Messiah is Jesus Christ, as the Second Article of the Creed teaches.
Catechism of the Catholic Church
III. ORIGINAL SIN
Freedom put to the test
396 God created man in his image and established him in his friendship. A spiritual creature, man can live this friendship only in free submission to God. the prohibition against eating “of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil” spells this out: “for in the day that you eat of it, you shall die.” [276] The “tree of the knowledge of good and evil” [277] symbolically evokes the insurmountable limits that man, being a creature, must freely recognize and respect with trust. Man is dependent on his Creator, and subject to the laws of creation and to the moral norms that govern the use of freedom.
Man's first sin
397 Man, tempted by the devil, let his trust in his Creator die in his heart and, abusing his freedom, disobeyed God's command. This is what man's first sin consisted of. [278] All subsequent sin would be disobedience toward God and lack of trust in his goodness.
398 In that sin man preferred himself to God and by that very act scorned him. He chose himself over and against God, against the requirements of his creaturely status and therefore against his own good. Created in a state of holiness, man was destined to be fully “divinized” by God in glory. Seduced by the devil, he wanted to “be like God”, but “without God, before God, and not in accordance with God”. [279]
399 Scripture portrays the tragic consequences of this first disobedience. Adam and Eve immediately lose the grace of original holiness. [280] They become afraid of the God of whom they have conceived a distorted image - that of a God jealous of his prerogatives. [281]
400 The harmony in which they had found themselves, thanks to original justice, is now destroyed: the control of the soul's spiritual faculties over the body is shattered; the union of man and woman becomes subject to tensions, their relations henceforth marked by lust and domination. [282] Harmony with creation is broken: visible creation has become alien and hostile to man. [283] Because of man, creation is now subject “to its bondage to decay”. [284] Finally, the consequence explicitly foretold for this disobedience will come true: man will “return to the ground”, [285] for out of it he was taken. Death makes its entrance into human history. [286]
401 After that first sin, the world is virtually inundated by sin There is Cain's murder of his brother Abel and the universal corruption which follows in the wake of sin. Likewise, sin frequently manifests itself in the history of Israel, especially as infidelity to the God of the Covenant and as transgression of the Law of Moses. and even after Christ's atonement, sin raises its head in countless ways among Christians. [287] Scripture and the Church's Tradition continually recall the presence and universality of sin in man's history:
What Revelation makes known to us is confirmed by our own experience. For when man looks into his own heart he finds that he is drawn towards what is wrong and sunk in many evils which cannot come from his good creator. Often refusing to acknowledge God as his source, man has also upset the relationship which should link him to his last end, and at the same time he has broken the right order that should reign within himself as well as between himself and other men and all creatures. [288]
The consequences of Adam's sin for humanity
402 All men are implicated in Adam's sin, as St. Paul affirms: “By one man's disobedience many (that is, all men) were made sinners”: “sin came into the world through one man and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all men sinned.” [289] The Apostle contrasts the universality of sin and death with the universality of salvation in Christ. “Then as one man's trespass led to condemnation for all men, so one man's act of righteousness leads to acquittal and life for all men.” [290]
403 Following St. Paul, the Church has always taught that the overwhelming misery which oppresses men and their inclination towards evil and death cannot be understood apart from their connection with Adam's sin and the fact that he has transmitted to us a sin with which we are all born afflicted, a sin which is the “death of the soul”. [291] Because of this certainty of faith, the Church baptizes for the remission of sins even tiny infants who have not committed personal sin. [292]
404 How did the sin of Adam become the sin of all his descendants? the whole human race is in Adam “as one body of one man”. [293] By this “unity of the human race” all men are implicated in Adam's sin, as all are implicated in Christ's justice. Still, the transmission of original sin is a mystery that we cannot fully understand. But we do know by Revelation that Adam had received original holiness and justice not for himself alone, but for all human nature. By yielding to the tempter, Adam and Eve committed a personal sin, but this sin affected the human nature that they would then transmit in a fallen state. [294] It is a sin which will be transmitted by propagation to all mankind, that is, by the transmission of a human nature deprived of original holiness and justice. and that is why original sin is called “sin” only in an analogical sense: it is a sin “contracted” and not “committed” - a state and not an act.
405 Although it is proper to each individual, [295] original sin does not have the character of a personal fault in any of Adam's descendants. It is a deprivation of original holiness and justice, but human nature has not been totally corrupted: it is wounded in the natural powers proper to it, subject to ignorance, suffering and the dominion of death, and inclined to sin - an inclination to evil that is called concupiscence”. Baptism, by imparting the life of Christ's grace, erases original sin and turns a man back towards God, but the consequences for nature, weakened and inclined to evil, persist in man and summon him to spiritual battle.
406 The Church's teaching on the transmission of original sin was articulated more precisely in the fifth century, especially under the impulse of St. Augustine's reflections against Pelagianism, and in the sixteenth century, in opposition to the Protestant Reformation. Pelagius held that man could, by the natural power of free will and without the necessary help of God's grace, lead a morally good life; he thus reduced the influence of Adam's fault to bad example. the first Protestant reformers, on the contrary, taught that original sin has radically perverted man and destroyed his freedom; they identified the sin inherited by each man with the tendency to evil (concupiscentia), which would be insurmountable. the Church pronounced on the meaning of the data of Revelation on original sin especially at the second Council of Orange (529) [296] and at the Council of Trent (1546). [297]
A hard battle. . .
407 The doctrine of original sin, closely connected with that of redemption by Christ, provides lucid discernment of man's situation and activity in the world. By our first parents' sin, the devil has acquired a certain domination over man, even though man remains free. Original sin entails “captivity under the power of him who thenceforth had the power of death, that is, the devil”. [298] Ignorance of the fact that man has a wounded nature inclined to evil gives rise to serious errors in the areas of education, politics, social action [299] and morals.
408 The consequences of original sin and of all men's personal sins put the world as a whole in the sinful condition aptly described in St. John's expression, “the sin of the world”. [300] This expression can also refer to the negative influence exerted on people by communal situations and social structures that are the fruit of men's sins. [301]
409 This dramatic situation of “the whole world [which] is in the power of the evil one” [302] makes man's life a battle:
The whole of man's history has been the story of dour combat with the powers of evil, stretching, so our Lord tells us, from the very dawn of history until the last day. Finding himself in the midst of the battlefield man has to struggle to do what is right, and it is at great cost to himself, and aided by God's grace, that he succeeds in achieving his own inner integrity. [303]
IV. “YOU DID NOT ABANDON HIM TO THE POWER OF DEATH”
410 After his fall, man was not abandoned by God. On the contrary, God calls him and in a mysterious way heralds the coming victory over evil and his restoration from his fall. [304] This passage in Genesis is called the Protoevangelium (“first gospel”): the first announcement of the Messiah and Redeemer, of a battle between the serpent and the Woman, and of the final victory of a descendant of hers.
411 The Christian tradition sees in this passage an announcement of the “New Adam” who, because he “became obedient unto death, even death on a cross”, makes amends superabundantly for the disobedience, of Adam. [305] Furthermore many Fathers and Doctors of the Church have seen the woman announced in the “Proto-evangelium” as Mary, the mother of Christ, the “new Eve”. Mary benefited first of all and uniquely from Christ's victory over sin: she was preserved from all stain of original sin and by a special grace of God committed no sin of any kind during her whole earthly life. [306]
412 But why did God not prevent the first man from sinning? St. Leo the Great responds, “Christ's inexpressible grace gave us blessings better than those the demon's envy had taken away.” [307] and St. Thomas Aquinas wrote, “There is nothing to prevent human nature's being raised up to something greater, even after sin; God permits evil in order to draw forth some greater good. Thus St. Paul says, 'Where sin increased, grace abounded all the more'; and the Exsultet sings, 'O happy fault,. . . which gained for us so great a Redeemer!'“ [308]
IN BRIEF
413 “God did not make death, and he does not delight in the death of the living. . . It was through the devil's envy that death entered the world” ( Wis 1:13; 2:24).
414 Satan or the devil and the other demons are fallen angels who have freely refused to serve God and his plan. Their choice against God is definitive. They try to associate man in their revolt against God.
415 “Although set by God in a state of rectitude man, enticed by the evil one, abused his freedom at the very start of history. He lifted himself up against God, and sought to attain his goal apart from him” (GS 13 # 1).
416 By his sin Adam, as the first man, lost the original holiness and justice he had received from God, not only for himself but for all human beings.
417 Adam and Eve transmitted to their descendants human nature wounded by their own first sin and hence deprived of original holiness and justice; this deprivation is called “original sin”.
418 As a result of original sin, human nature is weakened in its powers, subject to ignorance, suffering and the domination of death, and inclined to sin (this inclination is called “concupiscence”).
419 “We therefore hold, with the Council of Trent, that original sin is transmitted with human nature, “by propagation, not by imitation” and that it is. . . 'proper to each'“ (Paul VI, CPG # 16).
420 The victory that Christ won over sin has given us greater blessings than those which sin had taken from us: “where sin increased, grace abounded all the more” ( Rom 5:20).
421 Christians believe that “the world has been established and kept in being by the Creator's love; has fallen into slavery to sin but has been set free by Christ, crucified and risen to break the power of the evil one. . .” (GS 2 # 2).
257 St. Augustine, Conf. 7, 7, 11: PL 32, 739.
258 2 Th 2:7; I Tim 3:16.
259 Cf. Rom 5:20.
260 Cf. Lk 11:21-22; Jn 16:11; I Jn 3:8.
261 Cf. Rom 5:12-21.
262 Jn 16:8.
263 Cf. I Cor 2:16.
264 Cf. GS 13 # 1.
265 Cf. Council of Trent: DS 1513; Pius XII: DS 3897; Paul VI: AAS 58 (1966), 654.
266 Cf. Gen 3:1-5; Wis 2:24.
267 Cf Jn 8:44; Rev 12:9.
268 Lateran Council IV (1215): DS 800.
269 Cf. 2 Pt 2:4.
270 Gen 3:5.
271 I Jn 3:8; Jn 8:44.
272 St. John Damascene, Defide orth. 2, 4: PG 94, 877.
273 Jn 8:44; cf. Mt 4:1-11.
274 I Jn 3:8.
275 Rom 8:28.
276 Gen 2:17.
277 Gen 2:17.
278 Cf. Gen 3:1-11 ; Rom 5:19.
279 St. Maximus the Confessor, Ambigua: PG 91, 1156C; cf. Gen 3:5.
280 Cf. Rom 3:23.
281 Cf. Gen 3:5-10.
282 Cf. Gen 3:7-16.
283 Cf. Gen 3:17, 19.
284 Rom 8:21.
285 Gen 3:19; cf. 2:17.
286 Cf. Rom 5:12.
287 Cf. Gen 4:3-15; 6:5, 12; Rom 1:18-32; I Cor 1-6; Rev 2-3.
288 GS 13 # 1.
289 Rom 5:12, 19.
290 Rom 5:18.
291 Cf. Council of Trent: DS 1512.
292 Cf. Council of Trent: DS 1514.
293 St. Thomas Aquinas, De malo 4, I.
294 Cf. Council of Trent: DS 1511-1512
295 Cf. Council of Trent: DS 1513.
296 DS 371-372.
297 Cf. DS 1510-1516.
298 Council of Trent (1546): DS 1511; cf. Heb 2:14.
299 Cf. John Paul II, CA 25.
300 Jn 1:29.
301 Cf. John Paul II, RP 16.
302 I Jn 5:19; cf. I Pt 5:8.
303 GS 37 3 2.
304 Cf. Gen 3:9, 15.
305 Cf. I Cor 15:21-22, 45; Phil 2:8; Rom 5:19-20.
306 Cf. Pius IXs Ineffabilis Deus: DS 2803; Council of Trent: DS 1573.
307 St. Leo the Great, Sermo 73, 4: PL 54, 396.
308 St. Thomas Aquinas, STh III, I, 3, ad 3; cf. Rom 5:20.
Source used was a link to these catechisms from: https://www.catechism.cc/; downloaded 4/25/2023
For the Baltimore Catechism: https://www.catechism.cc/catechisms/Baltimore_Catechism.pdf
For the Catechism of St. Pope Pius X: https://www.catechism.cc/catechisms/Catechism_of_Pope_Saint_Pius_X.html
For the CCC: https://www.catechism.cc/catechisms/catechism.htm#-DD