Chapter 100 - The Condition of Children as Regards Justice

Except through some default of Nature, incompatible with a state of innocence, children necessarily resemble their parents in accidents proper to the species, although not in such as are personal. Since, therefore, original justice, in which the first man was created, was an accident proper to his species, not as though derived from the principle of species, but as a gift divinely bestowed upon human nature, it would have been transmitted to his posterity; as original sin, which is opposed to this justice, is actually transmitted, and called a sin of Nature.

Children would not, however, have been confirmed in grace; inasmuch as children are not entitled to more perfection than their parents had when they were born: thus they would not have been confirmed in grace until they reached the beatific Vision of God, except through some special privilege, such as we attribute to the Blessed Virgin.