I submit to you this statement is in error.
But, though He died for all, yet do not all receive the benefit of His death, but those only unto whom the merit of His passion is communicated. For as in truth men, if they were not born propagated of the seed of Adam, would not be born unjust,-seeing that, by that propagation, they contract through him, when they are conceived, injustice as their own,-so, if they were not born again in Christ, they never would be justified; seeing that, in that new birth, there is bestowed upon them, through the merit of His passion, the grace whereby they are made just.(The Council of Trent, Ch 3)
I think the issue is language, not meaning.
Catholic teaching is not against Augustine. Augustine was a Bishop, and is a Saint and doctor of the Catholic Church.
“I think the issue is language, not meaning.”
The issue is not language, it’s meaning. Because when Augustine and us say “it is by grace,’ we do not mean “it is by obedience and submission to sacraments,” which is what you mean. We do not say it is by “freely accepting a grace that is ineffectual to make us willing,” we say, with Augustine, that it is a grace which lights upon a man and makes the unwilling willing, and preserves the weak human will to salvation, and this He does without any noting of their righteousness, whether foreseen or not, but purely by the free-gift.
“You have not chosen me, but I have chosen you. John 15:16 For if they had been elected because they had believed, they themselves would certainly have first chosen Him by believing in Him, so that they should deserve to be elected. But He takes away this supposition altogether when He says, You have not chosen me, but I have chosen you.” (Augustine, Treatise on the Predestination of the Saints, Ch. 34)
The Romish system is entirely backwards, because it denies the holy scripture which Augustine here so excellently explains, and they make grace and salvation the fruit of our labor, rather than the origin of our faith, labor and fruit.