A Short Catechism On Original Sin

Adam and Eve Banished at the Garden of Eden

   Our understanding of what is Original Sin and our acceptance of its existence are one of the basis for the sacrament of baptism. Original Sin as taught in our Catholic Schools and in Catechism Classes is the stain of sin that has been passed on to every generation of Adam and Eve's descendants as it was said:  "Adam and Eve transmitted to their descendants. Human nature wounded by their own first sin and hence deprived of original holliness and justice"(CCC #417). The Sacred scriptures clearly supports this Catechism as it is written by King David: "True, I was born guilty, a sinner, even as my mother conceived me" Psalms 51:7 (NAB) and Job: "Can a man be found who is clean of defilement? There is none, however short his days." -Job 14:4 (NAB) and Saint Paul: "All of us once lived among them in the desires of our flesh, following the wishes of the flesh and the impulses, and we were by nature children of wrath, like the rest" Ephesians 2:3 (NAB).
   Clearly, both Doctrine of the Catholic Church and the Sacred Scriptures agree that there exist a sin which is marked from conception, a sin we have inherited from our ancestors because of their disobedience to the will of the Lord. The Lord had been generous to both Adam and Eve, had it not for the fallen state of human beings there would be no chaos and death "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" -Wisdom 1:13;2:24 (CCC#413) that is to say that everything death and man's misfortune has entered the world because of the devil's sly and deceiving offers which humans frail but with grace can overcome.
    It has been a sad fruit of the modern thinking to erase the existence of original sin because without original sin our Lord Jesus Christ would not have died on the cross, for which sin does he have to atone? is it the evil deeds of man as the fundamentalists believe. No! our Lord has died on the cross to purchase us from the bonds of the Evil one through his sacrament of Baptism. It is the ultimate resemblance of alms giving, burnt offerings and good deeds  for atonement of sin in the Judaic era. That's why we frequently hear lay minsters say it is the free gift of salvation from God, offered to you by the grace of God through baptism.