The true view is precisely what Jesus said in the Gospels, in the parable of the unforgiving servant. He said that just as the king did to the unforgiving servant - throw him in prison for torment until the last penny was paid - God would do the same to you if you are not forgiving of others.
"Until" is an important word. It means "Up to a certain point". It is not a synonym for "forever".
So, Jesus stated that sinners are forgiven their sins by God, by the sinners' own forgiveness of the sins committed by others against them. Indeed, at Jesus' behest, we all pray for exactly that standard of judgment every time we pray the Lord's prayer: "...and forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us".
Jesus described the place where those who die with unforgiven sin go. He did so a few times. He called it "Gehenna" (and although Gehenna is not in the Old Testament at all, the Jews knew what he meant because of their traditions. Gehenna is Jewish Purgatory - it's not in the Bible, but it is in the Jewish traditions, then and to this day - Gehenna is Jewish Purgatory, it is NOT Christian "Hell", which never appears in the Bible and is a fiction the way it is described).
He described Gehenna - parched, dry, a place where there are fires and fumes and decay. The rich man was suffering there, looking across the black chasm at Lazarus, who was with Abraham in Gan Eden (Jewish Paradise).
So, that is what Purgatory is. Purgatory is Gehenna, just exactly as Jesus described it.
When you die, you do not go immediately to "Heaven" (nobody actually EVER goes to Heaven). Nor do you go to Hell (nobody actually ever goes to Hell either). Your body falls back to dust. Your spirit (not your soul - your soul is the unity of your body and your spirit) proceeds into Sheol (Hebrew), Greek Hades - the Underworld. There, if you have died in a state of grace, you proceed directly to Gan Eden, Paradise in Greek. If you are not in a state of grace, if you have unforgiven sins, you proceeded into Gehenna, which is Purgatory, where you remain for an indeterminate period of cleansing, "until the last penny is paid".
Jewish tradition systematizes the time spent in Gehenna - Catholic tradition does not, other than to note that it is proportional. Jewish and Catholic tradition both recognize that the prayers of the living in remembrance of their spirits of the dead, may result in clemency.
In any case, the spirit remains in Gehenna UNTIL the last penny of due debt is paid, and then - assuming the world has not yet ended - proceeds to Gan Eden.
At the end of the world, ever tomb is opened and all of the spirits are called forth from Gehenna and Gan Eden, from Purgatory and Paradise, back into bodies. This is the Resurrection. It is immediately followed by final judgment. Those who pass that may enter into one of the gates of the City of God, the New Jerusalem, which comes down OUT of Heaven to Earth, but is not actually IN Heaven. This is "Heaven", this City of God on Earth (but really it's not Heaven - it comes down out of Heaven to the new earth.).
Those who fail judgment are thrown into the Lake of Fire for the second death. If one wishes to call the Lake of Fire "Hell", one can, but the Scriptures don't.
If one wants to call Gehenna "Hell", as the Scriptures sometimes do, that's ok, but then it must be recognized that Hell is not eternal - Purgatory is Hell in that case, so just call it Gehenna, as Jesus did, and be done with it.
The problem with "Hell" is that it conflates four different things, and add assumptions that come from Norse paganism but that are not actually revealed.
The problem with "Heaven" is that the word is actually "Sky", and Jesus did not reveal that people go to live forever in the sky, but that the City of God comes OUT of the sky to the remade earth, and people live THERE after the Resurrection.
That is the Biblical Gehenna, and City of God, and sky, and Paradise, and the pre-resurrection parts of that mesh with the Jewish traditions of Gehenna and Gan Eden. Jesus was not giving a new revelation regarding Gehenna or paying the debt of unforgiven sin there. Everybody knew what he meant then.
The City of God/End of the World/Resurrection/Final Judgment - these are new revelations, and they put a final end to both Paradise/Gan Eden AND Purgatory/Gehenna, but calling forth all spirits, back into bodies, for a final judgment in the flesh.
There, that answers your question.
Catholic terminology generally conflates Gehenna, the Lake of Fire and Hell, and conflates Paradise, the City of God, and Heaven. Catholic terminology also generally conflates spirit and soul.
All of those conflations do not obscure the message: which is what you have to do to avoid the bad places and get to the good places. What gets where and when is a bit muddled in the standard way of talking, but the ultimate destination and how to get there is what it is all about, not each paving stone on the path. And Catholicism speaks expertly on that, because it has been revealed.
Unknown stuff that isn't revealed, such as the exact inner workings of the Trinity, are areas of speculation for everybody, Catholics included.
