Pope Pius IX noticed the sinfulness of the world during his time. He had to escape with his life to Gaeta pursued by the Romans! During one of his meditation he saw what was wrong with the world: it forgot the existence of original sin. Jesus came to save us from original sin and its consequences, actual sins. This was the whole story of salvation and we forgot it.
Pope Benedict XVI also had been reminding us to review the doctrine of original sin because many Catholics neither know nor understand it.
As Mary had always been Jesus’ co-worker in the salvation of souls, what better help can the Church get than to call on her, the mother of the Church and the type of the Church to help out? And what wiser move than to declare her Immaculate Conception? Thus the Pope declared to the world the cause of its problem: original sin … and the solution? The imitation of Mary, who was spared from it.
From the beginning and up to the end of time original sin will be the cause of every evil in the world. It is because of it that death entered into the world.
What is original sin? God created us and willed to save us after the Fall. So He made a plan of salvation by which we could be saved. On our part all we had to do was to subject ourselves (our free will) to His Will. Adam and Eve went against His Will. The refusal to subject one’s will to God’s Will is original sin. And ever since the Fall, man could not subject himself to God’s Will: “I will do what I want.”
Christ had to die to restore man to his original state. With this restoration, greater graces would enable man to know God’s Will so he could once again subject himself to God and be saved. Without this grace, he would remain outside the sphere or influence of God’s Divine Providence.
The natural state of man in his fallen nature is that he goes against his supernatural end, he goes against his natural end and he goes against the nature around him. The consequence is that he destroys his soul by immorality, he destroys his body with illnesses and he destroys his environment. It is natural to fallen nature to abort babies, and wipe out the whales.
To be truly Catholic, to be truly restored to our original state, we must be like Mary, not an Immaculate Conception, but, through repentance, be without sin. This is what Pope Pius IX was trying to say when he proclaimed a doctrine that was believed from the beginning of the Church but whose application in one’s personal life many were ignorant of.
That we have forgotten the teachings on “Original Sin” is putting it mildly. We have not at all learned the doctrine on original sin: what really happened in paradise, how Adam and Eve were in paradise and after the fall, what is the true spiritual state of each person today and finally how the Catholic Religion is the only way that can reinstate man to his former place. (Portion of ” The Creation” late 12th century, Miniature from the Bible de Souvigny.)
Pope Pius IX noticed the sinfulness of the world during his time. He had to escape with his life to Gaeta pursued by the Romans! During one of his meditation he saw what was wrong with the world: it forgot the existence of original sin. Jesus came to save us from original sin and its consequences, actual sins. This was the whole story of salvation and we forgot it.