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The February 1991 issue of the Catholic magazine 30 Days features a very striking cover designed by Romano Sicilliani. Massacio’s famous painting, the expulsion of Adam and Eve from the Garden of Eden, is going up in flames, and underneath the legend reads: "Exonerating Pelagius? " The cover story by Antonio Socci- entitled "Yesterday's Heretic, Today's Pastor? "- tells of a rash of recent best-selling Catholic books repudiating the doctrine of original sin, and urging the rehabilitation of the fifth century heretic, Pelagius, who had denied its existence. The article unfortunately offers no real explanations why Pelagius and his rejection of original sin is making such an extraordinary comeback. In this paper I would like to offer a few speculations regarding the causes of this deplorable situation. At the present time there is underway a vicious two-pronged attack on the teaching of the Church concerning original sin. One attack is coming from what has been variously called liberalism, latitudinarianism, indifferentism, etc., and the other (often by the same men), from evolutionism. Let me begin with the attack on original sin from liberalism. For the sake of not taking anything for granted, here is a summary of Pelagianism from what used to be a standard text in many Catholic seminaries, God the Author of Nature and the Supernatural by Msgr. Joseph Pohle, which was translated from the German by Arthur Preuss- the whole series bein