[Petronski]

If that is the case, a prayer to reduce the suffering would not make sense.

It is actually a prayer that God in His mercy foreshorten the need for the suffering. At this hour, language fails me, so I will badly oversimplify it as a request that a judge reduce sentencing, or that the teacher let the student out of detention early.

[armydoc]

It is actually a prayer that God in His mercy foreshorten the need for the suffering. At this hour, language fails me, so I will badly oversimplify it as a request that a judge reduce sentencing, or that the teacher let the student out of detention early.

If God's mercy can reduce Purgatorial suffering, then the Catholic argument for the necessity of Purgatory has no merit. It is an admission that we really don't need to undergo the temporal punishment for our sins, that God's mercy is sufficient to do everything necessary to get us to Heaven. Which, of course, is the Protestant position.