the "California Catholic" is wrong - that is not what the Catholic Church teaches about Heaven, Hell, and Purgatory.
I'm not particularly surprised, but that is what she says.
Yes, it is right. I'm a Catholic. And I have always been said in my Catholic school and by my priests that the only ones to go straight to Heaven are Jesus and the Virgin Mary. All the rest of the mortals, even the saintest saint go through purgatory. What happens is that nobody knows exactly how it works. Is there time there and the better you are the least time you spend there?. Or is there no time there and the better you were in life the less you suffer in Purgatory?.