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"Faith alone is not sufficient as works are required to declare us righteous or justified."

Rather, precisely speaking as to what actually appropriates justification, it is faith,

"For what saith the scripture? Abraham believed God, and it was counted unto him for righteousness. Now to him that worketh is the reward not reckoned of grace, but of debt. But to him that worketh not, but believeth on him that justifieth the ungodly, his faith is counted for righteousness. Even as David also describeth the blessedness of the man, unto whom God imputeth righteousness without works, " (Romans 4:3-6)

Note it is the unGodly that are counted justified by faith. However, as concerns what kind of faith, as Reformers taught, it is the kind of faith that confesses Christ that is salvific, thus

"That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved. For with the heart man believeth unto righteousness; and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation. " (Romans 10:9-10; cf. 2:13)

Thus in the sense of what kind of faith is salvific, it can be said that one is justified by works, and not by faith only, in context meaning one that sterile, inert. And thus we have verses that express believers being counted worthy of eternal life due to their works, as works evidence faith. (Mt. 25:34-40; Rv. 2:17,26;3:4,12)

And all those who die in the Lord will go to be with the Lord at death, or if He returns before they do, (Lk. 23:42,43; Acts 7:59; 20:6; 2Cor. 5:8; Phil. 1:23,34; 1Ths. 4:17) though they will be judged at the return of Christ (1Cor. 4:5; Rv. 11:18) for what they did in building the church, directly or indirectly, that of gaining rewards or suffering the loss of them, (1Cor. 3:10-15;— not that all must fit in either category, but that all may gain or lose some) with the Lord's disapproval and our own own, knowing how we could have glorified the Lord, but despite loss (not because of it) they shall be saved. (v. 15) And thus Paul labored to gained His full approval. (2Cor. 5:9) Likewise, those who due in their sins shall go immediately to Hell, but their actual sentencing awaits the great white throne judgment, after the Lord returns with His resurrected saints, and who form part of the judgment of the lost. (Jude 1:14,15; 1Cor. 6:2)

And while the members of the church as the body of Christ both the pastors (not a distinct class called priests) and the “parishioners” — all being saints and knelling at the same “altar” — help one another to keep the faith and grow toward perfection, (Eph. 4:11-16; Heb. 3:13) and while works justify one as having true faith, yet no one earns or truly morally merits eternal life, but what we are all actually worthy of is eternal damnation (somewhat like detonation), "For the wages of sin is death; but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord." (Romans 6:23)

Every day that even the lost can wake up and seek the Lord and be saved, and thus get to serve the Lord, is a measure of grace, no matter where it is. We (i) would do well to count that ability a privilege at all times, as an expression of God's love and in response to it, rather than murmuring in difficulties.

The conflict in Rm. 4 is between salvation by moral merit, being actually just enough by works (and which is not restricted to works of the law, which some even in Roman Catholicism understand, but any earning of salvation), and rather than hoping that their good life will gain them eternal life, instead the lost must come to God as damned because of their life, and destitute of any righteousness that would gain them escape from what they deserve in Hell-fire, and gain eternal life, casting all their faith upon the mercy of God in Christ, to be saved on His blood-expense and righteousness.

Thus the criminal on the cross could be saved, as "The Lord is nigh unto them that are of a broken heart; and saveth such as be of a contrite spirit." (Psalms 34:18)

Rome actually allows for this in her baptism by desire, but which is something that some in her Traditional sects disagree with, while purely unmerited justification is understood as referring to the call of God in His prevenient grace of God, in which

"without any merits existing on their parts, they are called; that so they, who by sins were alienated from God, may be disposed through His quickening and assisting grace, to convert themselves to their own justification, by freely assenting to and co-operating with that said grace." (Trent, Cp. V.)

And which justification of the impious is gained via baptism of sprinkling of water, typically as an infant on proxy faith, on the basis of an actual interior righteousness:

"when by the merit of that same most holy Passion, the charity of God is poured forth, by the Holy Spirit, in the hearts of those that are justified, and is inherent therein: whence, man, through Jesus Christ, in whom he is ingrafted, receives, in the said justification, together with the remission of sins, all these (gifts) infused at once, faith, hope, and charity." (Trent, Cp. VII)

Then, via the sacramental system, grace is dispensed from Rome's infinite Treasury of merit, that of Christ and of the excess merit of saints, and by cooperating with such the saved Catholic is "accounted to have, by those very works which have been done in God, fully satisfied the divine law according to the state of this life, and to have truly merited eternal life. (Trent, Cp XVI. http://history.hanover.edu/early/trent/ct06.html)

But except for canonized saints, this process includes an indefinite time in purgatory, but in which system the Church helps by granting indulgences out of the aforesaid Treasury of merit, which provides the contrite supplicant with the means of paying the debt owed for his sin, which otherwise "must be expiated [atoned, be compensated] either on this earth through the sorrows, miseries and calamities of this life and above all through death, or else in the life beyond through fire and torments or 'purifying' punishments.” (Indulgentiarum Doctrina; cp. 1. 1967)

And which plan also and very predominately features help thru a Queen of Heaven, one promotion for which states, , "We were condemned through the fault of one woman; we are saved through the merits of another woman. Just as Eve was the root of death for everyone, so Mary was the source of life for everyone. (Ten Series of Meditations on the Mystery of the Rosary,” by John Ferraro, Nihil Obstat and the Imprimatur)