Actually, the Church does teach Sola Gratia. Without Grace, there is no salvation. We cannot be saved apart from Grace. So it is not incorrect to say that we are saved by Grace alone. There is nothing else that can save us.
The Church also teaches Sola Christo - we are saved by Christ alone. Without Jesus Christ, there is no saving Grace.
It is therefore possible for infants to be saved, even though they have neither Faith nor works.
Beyond the age of reason, we participate in the economy of salvation (which is really the economy of Grace), which includes both Faith and works, which is where the early protestants took a wrong turn. But neither faith nor works could save us without Grace, so they got that one right.
From http://forums.catholic.com/showthread.php?t=505494
“For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: Not of works, lest any man should boast.” Ephesians 2:8-9
There is a difference, I believe, between Sola Gratia-Grace alone- and Non Gratia-without Grace. The problem is part Protestant (whence the various and sundry Solas) and part semantic (Sola doesn’t actually mean alone as commonly understood).
I run into theological maneuvering via semantics with the folks who tout “unconditional love”.
Agreed. Without Grace, there is no salvation. So as you say, Luther’s “sola fide” is not correct, but “sola gratia” is. Actually there is a passage in the much maligned Council of Trent that makes that clear.
Curiously enough, Milton—who was anti-Catholic—gets it right in Paradise Lost. We have free will; but that free will is enabled by grace. Without the saving Sacrifice of Christ, we would have no truly free will. Freedom of choice was God’s gift to Adam and Eve; it was subsequently lost in the Fall, but given back to us again through the Sacrifice of the Cross.
So, Calvin was wrong on that point. We are not saved in spite of ourselves, like it or not; we are saved because we freely choose to do God’s will, enabled by His Grace and by what Milton calls God’s Umpire Conscience, which as St. Paul says, is “written in the heart” of all men.
Because God is a loving God, He wishes to be freely served, not forced to serve. Again quoting from Paradise Lost, in the words of the Archangel Gabriel, “freely we serve, / Because we freely love, as in our will, / To love or not.” But that freedom had to be restored to us by Christ’s Sacrifice on the Cross.
The Bible does not teach that there are different rules for salvation when one reaches the "age of reason" - whatever that is. Interesting theory but it is not biblical. No amount of works can save us. Nothing but the grace of Jesus Christ can save us. Works are important and should result from someone being a saved Christian however the works themselves do not save us.
I think the whole topic is academic. A saved Christian will benefit from grace and also have works. Cheap grace and ignoring works is not biblical either.