Roman doctors agree it was grace, but divide: some say it was somehow owed to innocent nature, since God could not create man bad or wretched
Although the teachers of the Roman Church now generally agree that man's righteousness and holiness in the state of integrity and innocence was a supernatural gift, grace in the proper sense, added on top of nature, there is still a notable difference of opinion among them.
Some of them hold that the first man's righteousness and holiness was supernatural and belonged to grace rather than to nature, yet was in some way owed to innocent nature. On their view it was impossible for God to make and create the first man without such grace, since that would have been at odds with God's goodness, justice and wisdom. Otherwise God would have created man either bad or wretched, or rather both.
A creature that neither knows God nor loves him with a pure and chaste love, as befits a rational creature, cannot help being bad and wretched. So too one whose bodily senses and appetite drag an unwilling, resisting reason down to lower things, and who do not obey the mind's commands and direction but rebel and riot against it. And it is contrary to God's goodness to make a man bad and a sinner, or at least wretched, through no fault of his own.
Latin
XII. Sed quamvis Doctores Ecclesiae Romanae in eo communiter hodie consentiant quod justitia & sanctitas hominis in integritatis & innocentiae statu fuit donum quoddam supernaturale, & gratia proprie sic dicta ac naturae superaddita: inter eos tamen hic restat sententiarum notabile discrimen. Etenim eorum nonnulli justitiam & sanctitatem primi hominis sic volunt fuisse supernaturalem, & ad gratiam non ad naturam pertinuisse, ut fuerit tamen quodammodo innocenti naturae debita. Ita ut impossibile fuerit primum hominem sine tali gratia a Deo condi & creari: quia scilicet, hoc repugnavisset divinae bonitati, justitiae, & sapientiae. Alioquin enim futurum fuisse, ut Deus crearet hominem vel malum, vel miserum, aut potius utrumque. Nam non potest non malus & non miser non esse qui Deum nec novit, nec amat puro & casto amore, prout creaturam rationalem decet: & in quo corporei sensus & appetitus rationem invitam & renitentem trahunt ad haec inferiora, nec mentis imperiis & dictamini parent, sed adversus eam rebellant atque tumultuantur. Est autem bonitati divinae contrarium, ut condat hominem malum & peccatorem, aut saltem miserum, absque ulla ipsius culpa.