Purgatory is one of those widely misunderstood doctrines of the Catholic Church

Purgatory is one of those widely misunderstood doctrines of the Catholic Church. One of the most common misunderstandings is that Purgatory is a place for bad Catholic’s to go for a “second chance” at Heaven. Purgatory is not necessary for all; the Church teaches that some will go directly to heaven while others who are going to heaven will be purged first. This can happens in the blink of an eye, the Church has never defined an amount of time for this process.


The Church teaches that someone’s eternal destiny is set and neither they nor anyone else is able to alter that choice after they die. Those who go through Purgatory are indeed assured of their eternal salvation. So after death we are judged for either Heaven or Hell and our eternal destiny is set, there is no “second chance”.


CCC 1022 Each man receives his eternal retribution in his immortal soul at the very moment of his death, in a particular judgment that refers his life to Christ: either entrance into the blessedness of heaven-through a purification or immediately, -- or immediate and everlasting damnation.


CCC 1030 All who die in God's grace and friendship, but still imperfectly purified, are indeed assured of their eternal salvation; but after death they undergo purification, so as to achieve the holiness necessary to enter the joy of heaven.


This final purification may take place in the immediate presence of God (to the extent that God's presence may be described in spatial terms). In fact, in his book on eschatology, Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger(Pope Benedict XVI) describes purgatory as a fiery, transforming encounter with Christ and his love:


"Purgatory is not, as Tertullian thought, some kind of supra-worldly concentration camp where one is forced to undergo punishments in a more or less arbitrary fashion. Rather it is the inwardly necessary process of transformation in which a person becomes capable of Christ, capable of God [i.e., capable of full unity with Christ and God] and thus capable of unity with the whole communion of saints. Simply to look at people with any degree of realism at all is to grasp the necessity of such a process. It does not replace grace by works[Gal 5:6 i.e., faith formed in love.], but allows the former to achieve its full victory precisely as grace. What actually saves is the full assent of faith. But in most of us, that basic option is buried under a great deal of wood, hay and straw. Only with difficulty can it peer out from behind the latticework of an egoism we are powerless to pull down with our own hands. Man is the recipient of the divine mercy, yet this does not exonerate him from the need to be transformed. Encounter with the Lord is this transformation. It is the fire that burns away our dross and re-forms us to be vessels of eternal joy."


Thus according to Cardinal Ratzinger's way of explaining the doctrine of purgatory, as we are drawn out of this life and into direct union with Jesus, his fiery love and holiness burns away all the dross and impurities in our souls and makes us fit for life in the glorious, overwhelming light of God's presence and holiness.