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What does this mean to you?

Purgatory

I. CATHOLIC DOCTRINE

Purgatory (Lat., "purgare", to make clean, to purify) in accordance with Catholic teaching is a place or condition of temporal punishment for those who, departing this life in God's grace, are, not entirely free from venial faults, or have not fully paid the satisfaction due to their transgressions.
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Temporal Punishment

That temporal punishment is due to sin, even after the sin itself has been pardoned by God, is clearly the teaching of Scripture.
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Purgatorial Fire

At the Council of Florence, Bessarion argued against the existence of real purgatorial fire, and the Greeks were assured that the Roman Church had never issued any dogmatic decree on tlils subject. In the West the belief in the existence of real fire is common. Augustine in Ps. 37 n. 3, speaks of the pain which purgatorial fire causes as more severe than anything a man can suffer in this life, "gravior erit ignis quam quidquid potest homo pati in hac vita" (P. L., col. 397). Gregory the Great speaks of those who after this life "will expiate their faults by purgatorial flames," and he adds "'that the pain be more intolerable than any one can suffer in this life" (Ps. 3 poenit., n. 1). Following in the footsteps of Gregory, St. Thomas teaches (IV, dist. xxi, q. i, a.1) that besides the separation of the soul from the sight of God, there is the other punishment from fire. "Una poena damni, in quantum scilicet retardantur a divina visione; alia sensus secundum quod ab igne punientur", and St. Bonaventure not only agrees with St. Thomas but adds (IV, dist. xx, p.1, a.1, q. ii) that this punishment by fire is more severe than any punishment which comes to men in this life; "Gravior est omni temporali poena. quam modo sustinet anima carni conjuncta". How this fire affects the souls of the departed the Doctors do not know, and in such matters it is well to heed the warning of the Council of Trent when it commands the bishops "to exclude from their preaching difficult and subtle questions which tend not to edification', and from the discussion of which there is no increase either in piety or devotion" (Sess. XXV, "De Purgatorio").
(Catholic Encyclopedia)
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I am particularly interested in the FIRE and in what I, in my ignorance, read as a not so subtle suggestion to "lets just keep quiet about this".

Enlightenment please.

The interesting thing to me is how each of the citations seems to be restating the same thing almost verbatim.. as though it were hastily written and as usual showing no real depth. Catholic Philosophy seems always to Grow and be fleshed out in the latter time rather than being a fully developed doctrine which has been followed from the start. Why is it that clarity and detail seems to creep in over time and is usually always pointing backward to documents that cannot be verified for veracity and exist only in Catholic circles.. The great inigma... It's bad enough that it's unbiblical, but, they want to buy credibility based on popularity or usage by some early person or persons . Or through quotation of Catholics. Is this not like having hitler say, "Aryans are the master race" and then for support seeing him turn around and ask an aryan for a supporting statement. LOL. Strong argument.