It is a teaching of the Church then when God created Adam and Eve they received, as part of their human nature, sanctifying grace; being that which: ‘Gives us acceptance into the kinship of God.’ (Council of Trent: Enchiridion; article 796).
As you know, the Bible teaches that Adam and Eve disobeyed God, and in so doing committed a personal sin. This sin, according to the Church, affected human nature itself, depriving it of its original and natural sanctifying grace. This deprivation of sanctifying grace is called ‘original sin’.
It is important to realise that original sin is called ‘sin’ in an analogical, rather than literal sense. We are not born with sin in the normal sense of the word; rather, we are born without our original holiness; without sanctifying grace. In other words, we are born with a ‘fallen human nature’. The remedy, according to the Church, is baptism:
‘There is no other way to come to the aid (of little children) than the sacrament of Baptism by which they are snatched from the power of the devil and adopted as children of God’ (Decree for the Jacobites at the Council of Florence: Denzinger 1349); and again: ‘If any one denies, that, by the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, which is conferred in baptism, the guilt of original sin is remitted; or even asserts that the whole of that which has the true and proper nature of sin is not taken away; but says that it is only razed, or not imputed; let him be anathema.’ (The Canons and Decrees of the Sacred and Oecumenical Council of Trent: Trans. J. Waterworth).
According to the Catholic Catechism the doctrine of original sin is an essential truth of the faith: ‘With the progress of Revelation, the reality of sin is also illuminated. Although to some extent the People of God in the Old Testament had tried to understand the pathos of the human condition in the light of the history of the fall narrated in Genesis, they could not grasp this story's ultimate meaning, which is revealed only in the light of the death and Resurrection of Jesus Christ.’ (Part One; Section Two; Paragraph 7).
This is a very interesting statement. What is being admitted is that the Tanakh contains no reference whatsoever to the concept of original sin. Indeed, this concept is alien to Judaism to this very day.
The Church teaches that those who die in a state of original sin are excluded from the ‘Beatific Vision’. This doctrine was declared by both the 2nd General Council of Lyons (1274) and the Council of Florence (1438-1445).
The Catholic Encyclopaedia defines the Beatific Vision as: ‘The immediate knowledge of God which the angelic spirits and the souls of the just enjoy in Heaven. It is called "vision" to distinguish it from the mediate knowledge of God which the human mind may attain in the present life. And since in beholding God face to face the created intelligence finds perfect happiness, the vision is termed "beatific".’
In 2007 - alarmed by the number of infants dying unbaptised (including those dying by abortion) the Church set up an International Theological Commission. This Commission published a study paper entitled: ‘The Hope of Salvation for Infants Who Die Without Being Baptised.’
The conclusion of this study was that: ‘There are theological and liturgical reasons to hope that infants who die without baptism may be saved and brought into eternal happiness, even if there is not an explicit teaching on this question found in Revelation. However, none of the considerations proposed in this text to motivate a new approach to the question may be used to negate the necessity of baptism, nor to delay the conferral of the sacrament. Rather, there are reasons to hope that God will save these infants precisely because it was not possible to do for them that what would have been most desirable - to baptize them in the faith of the Church and incorporate them visibly into the Body of Christ.’
The authors of the report state that: ‘When reflecting theologically on the salvation of infants who die without Baptism, the Church respects the hierarchy of truths.’
Let me remind you of one particular ‘truth’: ‘Those who die in a state of original sin are excluded from the Beatific Vision.’
There is a disconnect between the Magisterium of the Church and the views of many - perhaps most - Catholics, especially the laity. The Second Vatican Council was asked to rule on this matter - to overturn the official doctrines and canons of past Councils - but this was declined.
