Pope Pius V on Original sin & the human will

Nature wounded but not destroyed; grace perfects it

THE POSITION

The fall cost the supernatural gift of original justice and wounded, but did not destroy, the nature beneath it: the inclination toward virtue was "obscured", and without grace no one can do what is acceptable to God. The sharper claim that the unaided will can only sin is one he condemned. "Free will, without the help of God's grace, has only power for sin" is the 27th of the propositions of Michael Baius censured in Ex omnibus afflictionibus (1567, Denzinger 1027). The bull's censure allows that some propositions "could be maintained in some way" while condemning them in the sense their authors intended, so it rules out Baius's reading rather than every strong Augustinian sentence.

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ABOUT THIS FIGURE

Michele Ghislieri, a Dominican friar and inquisitor, was pope from 1566 to 1572 and carried the Council of Trent's decrees into practice. Under his authority came the Roman Catechism (1566), the reformed Breviary (1568) and Missal (1570), and the bull Ex omnibus afflictionibus (1567) on the teaching of Michael Baius; he also named Thomas Aquinas a Doctor of the Church. He wrote little theology of his own, so this entry rests on what he promulgated: the Roman Catechism, read in the McHugh and Callan translation, a commission's work issued by his order, and the 1567 bull in Deferrari's translation of Denzinger.