Question XXXVI: Whether one neighbor is to be loved more than another

I assert it. It is proved by St. Thomas, because the order of love is attended to according to the principle of goodness. Therefore he who is more conjoined to a more lovable goodness is more lovable; but some neighbors are nearer to God, and to us, than others. The Holy Doctor uses this reason also at the place cited, and Valent. disp. III q. IV p. IV, Fusiens. lib. III c. 9, and others.

First indeed, by a greater love objectively the better one is to be loved more. So St. Thomas art. 7. For he who is better is more conjoined with the principal object of charity, which is God, and has more good in himself. We can nevertheless wish a greater good for another, for instance a kinsman, than that which another has.

Secondly. By a greater appreciative love, he is to be loved more who is more conjoined either to God, or to the one loving him, or to both: but if one be better, the other more conjoined to me, the latter is to be loved more as regards those goods by which he is conjoined to me; hence in I Tim. V: If any man have not care of his own, and especially of those of his house, he hath denied the faith: And it is the opinion of St. Augustine lib. I doct. Christ. c. 28.

It is proved also by the reason of St. Bonaventure brought forward in q. XXX. Every motion takes its intensity, and as it were its weight, by which it tends toward the term, from its own principle, especially from that from which it proceeds; therefore the motion of charity too is borne with a greater as-it-were weight toward that which is more conjoined to the principle from which that motion of love proceeds; namely to the one loving himself.

Hence you have that those conjoined in all things are to be loved more than strangers, even if they be better, other things being equal; for as regards spiritual goods, those are to be loved more who are conjoined in grace, as spiritual sons, or spiritual parents.