People who assume don't think. If you assume you can slipstream from this world to the next carrying a boatload of sins, expecting to offload them at the dock of heaven because someone died on a cross, you're not thinking.
Heaven’s ecology is not going to be fouled by a toxic dump of sins--yours or anyone else’s--at the foot of God’s throne. If God shows you mercy at the moment of your personal judgement and intends you to share life with him forever, but you are carrying unreconciled sins and have done little or no penance on earth, then you’re going to have to take your sins somewhere else and deal with them before you come back.
That somewhere else is purgatory, a cleanup site where your soul is going to have to be scoured clean of debris and become presentable before you can sit down at heaven’s banquet table.
The saints of heaven are persons reconciled to God on earth. What are the good works of the elect? They are gold, silver and precious stones. What are sins but wood, hay and straw? And the fire (of purgatory) will test what sort of work each one has done. If any man's work is burned up, he will suffer loss, though he himself will be saved, but only as through fire.
As surely as heaven exists for perfect souls to praise God, there is a purgatory for imperfect souls whose unreconciled sins are the lumber, hay and straw that will be used to fuel the fire that purifies them.
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