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I would have to agree with jo kus that the Orthodox misunderstand the Catholic teaching concerning Original Sin. Lest I be accused of (or indeed be guilty of) mistating what Orthodox believe about this Catholic teaching, I will post the statements from two Orthodox websites. The first is from the Orthodox Church in America:

In the West, humanity likewise bears the "consequences" of the "original sin" of Adam and Eve. However, the West also understands that humanity is likewise "guilty" of the sin of Adam and Eve. The term "Original Sin" here refers to the condition into which humanity is born, a condition in which guilt as well as consequence is involved.
In the Orthodox Christian understanding, while humanity does bear the consequences of the original, or first, sin, humanity does not bear the personal guilt associated with this sin. Adam and Eve are guilty of their willful action; we bear the consequences, chief of which is death.

The second is from Orthodox Wiki:

The original (or "first") sin was commited by Adam and Eve (see Book of Genesis Chapter 3). Orthodoxy believes that, while everyone bears the consequences of the first sin, the foremost of which is physical death (in this world), only Adam and Eve are guilty of that sin (see Book of Ezekiel Chapter 18). Roman Catholicism teaches that everyone bears not only the consequence, but also the guilt, of that sin.

Thus the Orthodox take issue with Catholics over the question of personal guilt being born by the descendant of Adam. But if we look at the Catechism of the Catholic Church we find the following statement:

404 How did the sin of Adam become the sin of all his descendants? The whole human race is in Adam "as one body of one man". By this "unity of the human race" all men are implicated in Adam's sin, as all are implicated in Christ's justice. Still, the transmission of original sin is a mystery that we cannot fully understand. But we do know by Revelation that Adam had received original holiness and justice not for himself alone, but for all human nature. By yielding to the tempter, Adam and Eve committed a personal sin, but this sin affected the human nature that they would then transmit in a fallen state. It is a sin which will be transmitted by propagation to all mankind, that is, by the transmission of a human nature deprived of original holiness and justice. And that is why original sin is called "sin" only in an analogical sense: it is a sin "contracted" and not "committed" - a state and not an act.
405 Although it is proper to each individual, original sin does not have the character of a personal fault in any of Adam's descendants. It is a deprivation of original holiness and justice [emphasis added], but human nature has not been totally corrupted: it is wounded in the natural powers proper to it, subject to ignorance, suffering and the dominion of death, and inclined to sin - an inclination to evil that is called concupiscence". Baptism, by imparting the life of Christ's grace, erases original sin and turns a man back towards God, but the consequences for nature, weakened and inclined to evil, persist in man and summon him to spiritual battle.

Thus Catholics do not hold that we inherit the personal guilt or culpability of Original Sin. The Council of Trent (Session V) states it thus:

2. If anyone asserts that the transgression of Adam injured him alone and not his prosterity, and that the holiness and justice which he received from God, which he lost, he lost for himself alone and not for us also; or that he being defiled by the sin of disobedience, has transfused only death and the pains of the body into the whole human race, but not sin also, which is the death of the soul [emphasis added], let him be anathema, since he contradicts the Apostle who says: By one man sin entered into the world and by sin death; and so death passed upon all men, in whom all have sinned.

The idea that we inherit the guilt of Original Sin can be found in Article 5 of the same session of the Council of Trent:

5. If anyone denies that by the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ which is conferred in baptism, the guilt of original sin is remitted, or says that the whole of that which belongs to the essence of sin is not taken away, but says that it is only concealed or not imputed, let him be anathema.

This however is a misleading, even if common, translation. The word that is translated above as "guilt" is in the original Latin "reatum." As I have pointed out in an earlier discussion about Purgatory, this does not actually mean "guilt", which in Latin is "culpa." Rather reatum is a technical legal term which refers to the status of a person charged or convicted of a crime. It is because there is no English equivalent that this term is usually rendered as "guilt." A discussion found in Peter Lombard's Sentences from the 12th century might illuminate the difference:

Some think original sin is the criminal status (reatum) of the penalty for the sin of the first man, that is, the debt (debitum) or enslavement (obnoxietatem) by which we have been enslaved and are bondmen to the temporal and eternal punishment for the actual sin of the first man: because for this, as they say, eternal punishment is owed by all, unless they are freed through grace. — According to their opinion it must be said that original sin is neither fault (culpam) nor punishment (poenam). They do not acknowledge that it is guilt (culpam). Also, according to them, it cannot be a penalty (poena), because if original sin is the debt of punishment, since the debt of punishment is not punishment, neither is original sin punishment. — Some of them also say that in Scripture original sin is often called criminal status (reatum); and here they understand 'reatum', as it is said, is the enslavement (obnoxietem) of punishment.
(Liber II, Dist. XXX, Cap. 6)

For the sake of honesty I must state that Peter Lombard did not agree with this opinion but sided with St. Augustine that original sin is guilt (culpa). But the Council of Trent did not include the definition of St. Augustine and only mentioned reatum, not applying culpability of Original Sin to individuals.

"2. If anyone asserts that the transgression of Adam injured him alone and not his prosterity, and that the holiness and justice which he received from God, which he lost, he lost for himself alone and not for us also; or that he being defiled by the sin of disobedience, has transfused only death and the pains of the body into the whole human race, but not sin also, which is the death of the soul [emphasis added], let him be anathema, since he contradicts the Apostle who says: By one man sin entered into the world and by sin death; and so death passed upon all men, in whom all have sinned."

So according to this, Ezekiel is anathema, because Ezekiel 18 contradicts this completely. Gen 3 is a parable, which explains why man is in this world. Adam displayed the same exercise of free will that anyone else might. Sin enters the world when the first one sins.

Death is simply a movement from one place to another. Each man was to determine their own destiny by their own sovereignty of will, just as Adam did.

Thank you for your explanation of original sin as per Trent and the Catholic Catechism. I also found the language used by Trent interesting. Seems "everyone" believes that Catholicism is an offshoot of St. Augustine's theological thoughts on every front. Apparently, the Catholic Church did not accept a number of his ideas, some often tainted with Manichaeism and Neo-Platoism.

There is no doubt that a number of Catholics have been taught that original sin is "guilt" that must be removed. What is interesting is that when one reads such men as St. Thomas Aquinas, we find the correct interpretation that goes back to the Patristic era. Original sin is a lack of God within our souls - which also happens to be called "sin". Whether this "sin" is a result of our own doing or of an inherited nature, it is a lack of God nonetheless that must be rectified by being "born anew".

Regards

Now that I have shown that Catholics do not indeed believe that we inherit the personal guilt of Original Sin I would like to address what it is. Both the Council of Trent and the Catechism of the Catholic Church describe the reatum/fallen state of Original Sin as a loss of holiness and justice. The Orthodox sources that I have seen speak of consequences of the Original Sin, the chief of which is death. Yet they also say, as do Catholics, that Baptism imparts Sanctifying Grace into the soul. The question that I raise is how do the Orthodox view Sanctifying Grace and how does it, or does it not, differ from Catholic belief? Also, what is its relationship with Original Sin?