The Catholic Church teaches the Augustinian doctrine of original sin as defined at the Council of Trent (1546): through Adam's fall, all human beings are conceived with original sin—a state of deprivation of sanctifying grace and subjection to concupiscence, suffering, and death. This is not personal guilt for Adam's act, but a real privation of the holiness and justice in which humanity was created. Baptism removes original sin and restores the life of grace.

The effects of original sin that remain after baptism—concupiscence (disordered desires), suffering, and death—are called by Catholic theology the 'wounds of sin' or 'remains of sin' (fomes peccati). The Immaculate Conception (1854) affirms that Mary alone was preserved from original sin by a singular grace. Catholic anthropology insists that human nature, though wounded by original sin, remains fundamentally good—it is not totally corrupt as some Protestant traditions hold.