The Church’s teaching about original sin is easily the most resented tenet of all her message. In this age of overoptimism fueled by the marvels of technology, trendy theologians are especially ashamed of that tenet. They do everything to make it disappear from the faithful’s consciousness. A very strange effort, because the same theologians claim to be empirical. Yet no dogma of the Church has so much empirical support as the dogma of original sin. Man, as the first chapter shows, appears to be be caught in wars with others and himself, to the point of showing itself to be an almost mortally wounded being. The second chapter presents the fact that the Pharisees, who thought themselves to be perfect, rejected Jesus, God’s most original remedy to wounded man. A major lesson on behalf of original sin can be found also in the circumstances in which original sin obtained its first dogmatic formulation. Such is the topic of the third chapter. In brief, the book aims at answering the sceptical question: Original sin?

By Fr. Stanley L. Jaki

ISBN 978-1-892548-34-4  •  viii + 77 pages  •  softcover