📖Overview

According to the Catechism of the Catholic Church, Sin is an offense against reason, truth, and right conscience; it is a failure in genuine love for God and neighbor caused by a perverse attachment to certain goods. It wounds the nature of man and injures human solidarity. Sin is an utterance, a deed, or a desire contrary to the eternal law. It is an offense against God, a rebellion against His love for us. Sin sets itself against God's love and turns our hearts away from Him. The gravity of sin is measured by the object of the act, the intention of the person, and the circumstances. Mortal sin destroys charity in the heart of man by a grave violation of God's law; it turns man away from God, who is his ultimate end and his beatitude, by preferring an inferior good to Him. Mortal sin requires full knowledge, deliberate consent, and grave matter. Venial sin allows charity to subsist, even though it offends and wounds it; it weakens charity and impedes the soul's progress in the exercise of the virtues and the practice of the moral good. Repeated venial sin disposes one toward mortal sin. There is a proliferation of sin in human life: sin creates a proclivity to sin and generates vice by repetition of the same acts. The root of all sins lies in the heart of man, and the principal sins (capital sins) are pride, avarice, envy, wrath, lust, gluttony, and sloth. We have a responsibility in the sins committed by others when we cooperate in them.

💡Key Points