Sin in the strict sense implies guilt for which one is personally responsible. Therefore the term “Original Sin” refers, not to a personal sin, but rather to the disastrous, fallen state of mankind into which the individual is born, even before he himself sins by a free decision. [388-389, 402-404]
In talking about Original Sin, Pope Benedict XVI says that we must understand “that we all carry within us a drop of the poison of that way of thinking, illustrated by the images in the Book of Genesis. The human being does not trust God. Tempted by the serpent, he harbors the suspicion that God is a rival who curtails our freedom and that we will be fully human only when we have cast him aside. Man does not want to receive his existence and the fullness of his life from God. And in doing so, he trusts in deceit rather than in truth and thereby sinks with his life into emptiness, into death.” (Pope Benedict, Dec. 8,2005)
