CSDC 116

At the root of personal and social divisions, which in differing degrees offend the value and dignity of the human person, there is a wound which is present in man's inmost self. “In the light of faith we call it sin: beginning with original sin, which all of us bear from birth as an inheritance from our first parents, to the sin which each one of us commits when we abuse our own freedom”²²⁴ John Paul II, Apostolic Exhortation Reconciliatio et Paenitentia, 2: AAS 77AAS — Acta Apostolicae Sedis (official gazette of the Holy See)Volume 77 (1985) at vatican.va — scanned PDF (1985), 188; cf. Catechism of the Catholic Church, 1849.. The consequences of sin, insofar as it is an act of separation from God, are alienation, that is, the separation of man not only from God but also from himself, from other men and from the world around him. “Man's rupture with God leads tragically to divisions between brothers. In the description of the ‘first sin', the rupture with Yahweh simultaneously breaks the bond of friendship that had united the human family. Thus the subsequent pages of Genesis show us the man and the woman as it were pointing an accusing finger at each other (cf. Gen. 3:12). Later we have brother hating brother and finally taking his brother's life (cf. Gen 4:2-16). According to the Babel story, the result of sin is the shattering of the human family, already begun with the first sin and now reaching its most extreme form on the social level”²²⁵ John Paul II, Apostolic Exhortation Reconciliatio et Paenitentia, 15: AAS 77AAS — Acta Apostolicae Sedis (official gazette of the Holy See)Volume 77 (1985) at vatican.va — scanned PDF (1985), 212-213.. Reflecting on the mystery of sin, we cannot fail to take into consideration this tragic connection between cause and effect.