Sorry, I’ll try to be clearer.
As I understand it, you are saying that the position of the Catholic and Orthodox with regard to orginal sin is much the same. Both agree we suffer the consequences of the sin - conquipisance - but not personal guilt.
I disagree. For one thing, the Orthodox suggest death is the result of sin, and other consequences flow from that, and I don’t see that in Catholic teaching.
But more to the point I was getting at above - you have different practices based on your explanations, which to me suggest strongly that there is a real difference in understanding. How you understand infant baptism is the clearest example.
For Catholics, washing away Original sin is an important component. Sometimes this is expressed as an infusion of Grace, which is lacking in the unbaptized infant due to Original Sin. Additionally, if an infant dies without baptism, the CC will not positively affirm the child can go to Heaven - he is (now) said to be given to the mercy of God. (Previously the tendency was to be much more harsh, many subscribed to the idea of limbo and unbaptized infants would be buried outside consecrated ground.)
For the Orthodox, washing away of sin is not an image used in infant baptism. Nor is the infant said to be cut off from Grace (which I understand to be different ways of saying the same thing.) They do positively affirm that unbaptized infants are not barred from Heaven, as they have no sin to prevent them going there.
I do understand that the theology and presentation are different between Orthodox/Eastern Catholic and Latin Catholic, yet the essentials are the same.
- The following shows the Catholic teaching, like the Orthodox, that death is the result of sin, and other consequences flow from that:
CCC 402 All men are implicated in Adam’s sin, as St. Paul affirms: “By one man’s disobedience many (that is, all men) were made sinners”: “sin came into the world through one man and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all men sinned.” The Apostle contrasts the universality of sin and death with the universality of salvation in Christ. “Then as one man’s trespass led to condemnation for all men, so one man’s act of righteousness leads to acquittal and life for all men.”
- Different practices suggest a real difference in understanding, for example, using infant baptism, but essentially there is not a difference, because:
a. For the Orthodox, and Catholic alike, restoring justice and sanctification are needed by the infant to be baptised. This is the indwelling of the Holy Spirit variously known as sanctifying grace.
Saint John Chrysotsom writes in his Baptismal Instruction 3:6:
“You have seen how numerous are the gifts of baptism. Although many men think that the only gift it confers is the remission of sins, we have counted its honors to the number of ten. It is on this account that we baptize even infants, although they are sinless, that they may be given the further gifts of sanctification, justice, filial adoption, and inheritance, that they may be brothers and members of Christ, and become dwelling places of the Spirit.”
b. Both the Orthodox and Catholic affirm that unbaptized infants have no personal sin to prevent them going to heaven, and are not certainly known as barred from salvation, as there is hope in the mercy of God. Not all Orthodox churches use the same language for this issue.
CCC 403 Following St. Paul, the Church has always taught that the overwhelming misery which oppresses men and their inclination towards evil and death cannot be understood apart from their connection with Adam’s sin and the fact that he has transmitted to us a sin with which we are all born afflicted, a sin which is the “death of the soul”. Because of this certainty of faith, the Church baptizes for the remission of sins even tiny infants who have not committed personal sin.
CCC 405 … Baptism, by imparting the life of Christ’s grace, erases original sin and turns a man back towards God, but the consequences for nature, weakened and inclined to evil, persist in man and summon him to spiritual battle.
CCC 1250 Born with a fallen human nature and tainted by original sin, children also have need of the new birth in Baptism to be freed from the power of darkness and brought into the realm of the freedom of the children of God, to which all men are called. …
CCC 1261 As regards children who have died without Baptism, the Church can only entrust them to the mercy of God, as she does in her funeral rites for them. …
