Sin leads to sin. Personal evil becomes a habit and proliferates to form a structure. Eve handed Adam some forbidden fruit, making himself guilty and ordinary. In this way, sin breeds and multiplies. So it constitutes "social sin". When the consequences of the sins committed by individuals are gathered, "the structures of sin" are formed, creating a system that attracts others to commit the same evil.
The Church teaches that you should be responsible for how we act in this system of evil and the Nazis are a case in point, and so are those who followed bin, Laden. Being part of the system itself is a sin. # 1868 Catechism of the Church: "A sin is a personal act. Moreover, we have a responsibility for the sins committed by others when we cooperate with them: by participating directly and voluntarily in them; by ordering, advising, praising, or approving them; by not disclosing or not hindering them when we should do so; by protecting evil-doers."
Adolf Eichmann is a man who contributed to establishing an efficient system to find as many as 6 million Jews in Europe, confiscating their assets, and sending them to camps. After the defeat of Germany, he fled to Argentina, was arrested by Israeli intelligence agency Mossad in 1960, and tried and executed in Jerusalem.
The Jewish philosopher Hannah Arendt compiled an account of the trial and published a book titled "Eichmann of Jerusalem." Arendt initially imagined that Eichmann would look like a cool-headed Germanic warrior, but was surprised he was a very small, weak-minded, ordinary figure.
Eichmann was charged with 15 counts during the trial. But he didn't admit a single sin during the whole trial. He said he was not in a position to take responsibility and therefore did not feel guilty. He said he was just a low-ranking government official who faithfully fulfilled the duties given to him so he could feed and take care of his family. And that was the case. He did what the state asked him to do as best he could, not because he hated the Jews. So, Arendt sub-titled the book, "Report on the Banality of Evil" (Normalness of Evil). Maybe he wanted to say: "If you were in the same situation as me, wouldn’t you have done the same?"
But he was convicted and executed. Why did you do that? His biggest sin that Hannah Arendt saw was his uncritical acceptance of the evil system. No matter how zealous and normal you live, a person always belongs to a system and is governed by it. But if you can't tell whether it's an evil or a good system, that's the biggest sin. A sailor worked hard all his life on a ship. But in the end, he was arrested by the police and sentenced to death. Why? Because the ship was a pirate ship.
You have to distinguish whether your hard work is not a sin and whether your social system leads you to good or evil.
The only way out of the structure of evil is to stay in a community where good is common. The "church" is a community that Christ established in contrast to the system of the world. The world hated Christ and crucified him. St. Teresa of Avila, just before her death, repeats: "After all, I am a daughter of the Church", she hoped she was not a sinner
