This is what you want to believe but it is most likely false. The historical evidence of doctrinces and beliefs contained in the writings we have from the first 1000 years of the church do not show this. Plus as has been pointed out to you the Greek (and Syriac etc) part of the church does not know it.
Re your other points please note that a practice of praying for the deceased does not imply a belief in purgatory. The doctrines of
1) purgatory as a place for temporal punishment, as well as
2) the whole theory of differentiating between eternal and temporal punishment and
3) the connected doctrine of indulgences
are only found in the Roman church, have no real backing in the writings of the early church and definitely no backing in Scriptures. In fact these doctrines directly contradict Scriptures. Jesus took the punishment for sins and therefore God forgives freely all sin out of grace and no further expiation is necessary.
The Catholic Church does not teach that purgatory is necessarily a place--the Bible does not specify.
Matthew 5:25-26 :
25 Be reconciled with your adversary quickly, while you are still on the way with him, lest perhaps the adversary may hand you over to the judge, and the judge may hand you over to the officer, and you will be thrown in prison.
26 Amen I say to you, that you shall not go forth from there, until you have repaid the last quarter.
CPDV
1 Corinthians 3:11–15:
{3:11} For no one is able to lay any other foundation, in place of that which has been laid, which is Christ Jesus.
{3:12} But if anyone builds upon this foundation, whether gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, or stubble,
{3:13} each one’s work shall be made manifest. For the day of the Lord shall declare it, because it will be revealed by fire. And this fire will test each one’s work, as to what kind it is.
{3:14} If anyone’s work, which he has built upon it, remains, then he will receive a reward.
{3:15} If anyone’s work is burned up, he will suffer its loss, but he himself will still be saved, but only as through fire.
{3:16} Do you not know that you are the Temple of God, and that the Spirit of God lives within you? CPDV
Pope St. Gregory the Great, who died in 590 A.D. said:
"They who had the perfection of a good will in confession of sin after death pass by Purgatorial pain to life, if they may not have a sufficient amount of love to wash away their sins: and hence St. Paul says:
They are saved as so by fire.
But let the sinner who has deserved to be saved by fire there. supply by affliction of the flesh here that detect of ardent love which he knows he wants."
"But, however, it must be believed that there is a Purgatorial fire for some light faults before judgment ... but we must believe that this can only happen in the case of small and very small sins."
Saint Augustine said: "Temporal punishments are suffered by some in this life only, by some after death, by some both here and hereafter, but all of them before that last and strictest judgment. But not all who suffer temporal punishments after death will come to eternal punishments, which are to follow after that judgment" (
The City of God 21:13 [A.D. 419]).
St. Caesar 470 A.D. - 543 A.D:
"If we neither return thanks to God in tribulation, nor redeem sins with good works, we shall stay in the Purgatorial fire until the above-named small sins be consumed like wood, hay and stubble ... But some one says:
I don't mind how long I stay there if at length I shall arrive at eternal life.
Let no one say this dearest brethren, because that Purgatory fire shall be severer than any punishment that can be either thought of, or seen, or felt in this world. How can anyone know whether he is about to pass through that fire for days and months or perhaps even for years?"
St. Cyprian of Carthage 200 A.D. - 258 A.D.
"It is one thing to hope for forgiveness, and another to enter into eternal glory; one thing to be cast into prison and not to go out from thence until the last farthing is paid, and another immediately to receive the reward of faith and virtue; one thing to be tortured for sins by long-lasting pains and purged by fire, and another to have already expiated sin [here below] by martyrdom."
"It is one thing to be cast into prison not to be released until the last farthing is paid, and another thing through the ardor of faith immediately to attain to the reward."