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Dear catholic.com visitors: This Catholic Answers website, with all its free resources, is the world’s largest source of explanations for Catholic beliefs and practices. We receive no funding from the institutional Church and rely entirely on your generosity to sustain this website with trustworthy, accessible content. If every visitor this month donated $1, catholic.com would be fully funded for an entire year. If you’ve never made a gift, now is the time. Your donation will be matched dollar for dollar this week only. Thanks and God bless.

Can the devil really make us do it?

Question:

You often hear of people discussing Satan trying to attack them and lead them to sin, but what really is within Satan’s capabilities?

Answer:

Satan can tempt us to commit sin, but the choice to commit sin and the culpability for sin is ours. We remain free to reject his temptations. To say that “The devil made me do it” is an excuse—indeed, one might say the original excuse (Gn 3:11-13).

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