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A concept involved intimately with the idea of predestination is that of predilection, described as "the love of predilection." To quote Father Garrigou-Lagarange (all quotations will be from his book, Predestination):

Predestination implies, therefore, along with foreknowledge a love of predilection or the will to effect in a particular person and by means of him in preference to a certain other, this salutary good by which such a person will actually merit and attain eternal life." (Page 47)

While you will not find a direct quote in the solemn magisterium that "God loves the elect more," such a view is "the logical result" of the teachings of the solemn magisterium:

The Council of Orange makes no positive affirmation about predestination to glory and grace; but we see that this is the logical result of the canons just quoted, especially of canons twelve and twenty. The latter canon reads: "There is no good act done by man which God does not help man to do." Canon twelve declares that "God loves us because of what we will be by the gift of His grace, not because of what we are by our own merit." These two statements along with the Pauline text: "What hast thou that thou hast not received?" are tantamount to saying that one would not be better than another if one were not loved more and helped more by God, and that in the work of salvation everything comes from God, in this sense that we cannot detect therein the least good which could be said to be exclusively from ourselves and not from Him." (Page 52)

This idea of the elect being "loved more by God" is clear in St. Thomas:

On the other hand, as regards the consequent will, St. Thomas affirms, more clearly than anyone had done before his time, the principle of predilection, which is that one would not be better than another unless one were loved more by God. As he says: "Since God's love is the cause of goodness in things, as has been said, no one thing would be better than another if God did not will greater good for one than for another . . . And the reason why some things are better than others, is that God wills them a greater good. Hence it follows that He loves more the better things." (Pages 75-76)

And again:

The fourth article proves that the predestined are elected by God, so that predestination presupposes election, and this latter presupposes love. As St. Thomas says: "Predestination presupposes election, in the order of reason; and election presupposes love" (page 86)

The second principle applied here is that of predilection: no thing would be better than another, unless it were loved more by God. St. Thomas, without alluding at all to the foreseeing of our merits, whether conditionally future or future, excludes any idea of passivity or dependence from the divine knowledge. He writes as follows: "Election and love, however, are differently ordered in God than in ourselves: because in us the will in loving does not cause good, but we are incited to love by the good which already exists; and therefore we choose someone to love, and so election in us precedes love. In God, however, it is the reverse. For His will, by which in loving He wishes good to someone, is the cause of that good possessed by some in preference to others. Thus it is clear that love precedes election in the order of reason, and election precedes predestination. Whence all the predestinate are objects of election and love." (Page 87)

When God says, "I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy," He's not kidding.

The principle of predilection explains a lot, like no salvation outside the catholic church, and the baptism of some infants who die before being able to exercise personal faith, and not others.

I wonder when was the last time the principle of predilection was spoken of by a priest in a homily in a Catholic church.

DR

Welcome to the board here DecemRationis, I always think on that one verse in the Bible you quoted: "I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy,"  

twiceborn said:

I think Molinism has been like a cancer in The Church, expanding and undermining even the most fundamental of doctrines (Original Sin, EENS, etc).

Or you could see it as having a Counter-Reformation effect, preventing a too-rigid Augustinianism ( boy, does that sound pompous ).  

I think it's a red herring, this whole argument.  It's something Catholic intellectuals like to do to sharpen their wits.  But the question is not resolvable, in my view.  There are problems with every schema that you can come up with on grace vs. free will.  The problem with Molinism is that it posits what I imagine like a giant invisible pool of grace that we just have to reach up and grab some of, as if it were an apple hanging from a tree.  Any of us can have it, just as any of us can have air, as long as we choose to breathe.  It's sloppy, sort of like my mixed metaphors in this paragraph.

If Molinism is unsatisfactory from the point of view of God's predestination, Thomism is unsatisfactory from the point of view of our free will.  It also makes the idea that God wants all men to be saved an in-name-only proposition.  The will has to correspond with sufficient grace, but God already knows whose will is going to respond, so that He can give them more grace ( efficient grace ).  Yet if the will responds in the first place, it can only be because of grace, because of what He gives.  So you enter this Catch-22.  The sufficient grace of Thomism is actually often insufficient!

It makes you wonder, "Then why doesn't He give sufficient grace to everyone, so that their sufficent grace becomes efficient grace through a motion of the will?  Why is this sufficient grace only sufficient for some and not for others, when it is God who controls how much grace is necessary for each person?"  Couldn't this lead to the conclusion that God Himself is responsible for not giving enough grace to certain people?  

So yeah, if you are going to be a Thomist, you flirt with the idea that God intended for some to be damned.  And how does this square with His desire for universal salvation?  Yes, He has favorites, but He still desires the salvation of all.  Molinism resolves this problem, and its sufficient grace really is sufficient in all cases.  That is the virtue of Molinism, that is the "Eureka!" aspect of it.  It's just kind of sloppy, with grace being poured out all over the place indiscriminately.  

Liguori had an in-between view, I forget the name of it, but that is what I have.