Listen now | From the audiobook Explanation of Catholic Morals - Chapter 17, "Filial Love," asserts that love for parents is a fundamental law of nature, stemming from their role in granting and sustaining life, a selfless investment of "flesh and blood, substance, health, and comfort." This love, second only to that owed to God, demands a complete identification with parental well-being. While parents may, through their own moral failures, become "unlovable," children are still bound by natural, charitable, and divine law to offer at least pity and prayers for their betterment, recognizing the inherent dignity of every soul and the possibility of reclamation, and thus never to truly despise a fallen parent.