you wrote:
“My wife is Filipina and came from as strong a Catholic nation as any could be ... and they don’t even KNOW about purgatory.”
Even the Protestants in the Philippines know about Purgatory: http://anglicanusephilippines.blogspot.com/2011/06/filipino-episcopalians-debate-about.html
“Are there different kinds of Catholic?”
Yes, there are 22 or so sui juris Churches within the Catholic Church: Roman, Melkite, Byzantine, Ukrainian, Italo-Albanian, etc. The Philippine Catholics are part of the Roman Church. And they know all about Purgatory in the Philippines. There’s even a mountain named after it there: http://www.pinoymountaineer.com/2013/01/mt-purgatory-traversemt-pack-mt.html The problem is probably your wife’s knowledge or lack thereof. Your wife never went to Mass there?: http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:SgiA6utAaAQJ:www.mb.com.ph/node/145573+&cd=4&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us
Other Filipinos are much better informed and educated:
ruben arthur nicdao
1 year ago
i am a promoter of the divine mercy devotion and the st. gertrude prayer for souls in purgatory; a.filipino in manila; just discovered ur site now and was so happy to know that a lot of people are also saying this awesome prayer many times over like i do!.500 times daily on the rosary beads since last year, to this day a total of 100 million souls would have been released from purgatory! praise GOD! thank you st. gertrude!.
http://www.catholic.org/saints/saint.php?saint_id=424
http://anglicanusephilippines.blogspot.com/2011/06/filipino-episcopalians-debate-about.html
Certainly not validation of a collectively accepted doctrine.
"Filipino Episcopalians debate about purgatory while Catholics no longer bother about it!"