But we are taught that ѕυιcιdєs go straight to Hell... so if the prayer worked retroactively that means that the person wouldn't have committed ѕυιcιdє in the first place?

 But we are taught that ѕυιcιdєs go straight to Hell... so if the prayer worked retroactively that means that the person wouldn't have committed ѕυιcιdє in the first place?

The intentional taking of one's own life (i.e., ѕυιcιdє) may not always constitute a mortal sin as for example when the individual is severely mentally impaired.  The Catholic Church does not teach that all victims of ѕυιcιdє go to hell.  Even if a person is not severely mentally impaired and still takes his own life.  God in His infinite mercy is able to suspend time so to speak and allow a person to repent of his act even if it is just the time between the squeeze of a trigger on a gun and the bullet sending the person's soul into eternity. 

A concrete example of God's mercy is shown in the famous example taken from the life of St. John Vianney.  I read it personally in what is likely the greatest biography of the Cure of Ars written by the saintly the Abbe Trochu.  I have taken what follows concerning this incident from the Internet: "An extraordinary example of the "between the stirrup and the ground" phenomenon was described by the Abbe Trochu in his biography of the Cure d'Ars. A certain Abbe Guillaumet met a lady on a train who was in deep mourning and when he said that he was going to Ars she asked, "Monsieur l'Abbe, will you allow me to accompany you to Ars? I may as well go there, as elsewhere.... I am travelling to distract my thoughts." When they reached the village, the priest led the lady to a place near the church and suddenly, the Cure appeared. He stopped in front of the lady in black who, following the example of the crowd, had gone down on her knees. He bent over her and whispered into her ear: "He is saved!" The woman was startled and M. Vianney repeated: "He is saved!" A gesture of incredulity was the only reply of the stranger. Whereupon the saint, stressing each word, repeated, "I tell you he is saved. He is in Purgatory, and you must pray for him. Between the parapet of the bridge and the water he had time to make an act of contrition. Our Blessed Lady obtained that grace for him. Remember the shrine that you put up in your room during the month of May? Though your husband professed to have no religion, he sometimes joined in your prayers; this merited for him the grace of repentance and pardon at the last moment.

The next day, the lady explained to Abbe Guillaumet that she had been in black despair because of the tragic death of her husband: "He was an unbeliever, and my one object in life was to bring him back to God. I did not get the time. He committed ѕυιcιdє by drowning himself. I could only think of him as lost. Oh! Were we never again to meet? Now you hear that the Cure d'Ars told me more than once: 'He is saved!' So I shall meet him again in heaven. Monsieur L'Abbe, I am cured!"

klas, the OP is liberalism stretched to it's conclusion - that's all it is.

"...he that doth the will of my Father who is in heaven, he shall enter into the kingdom of heaven."

Which is to say that all of those who do die and have not done the will of His Father in heaven, will most certainly, go to hell - but, while it is true that we cannot say for certain who certainly went to hell (or heaven), we can have absolute faith in what Our Lord said.

It has always and everywhere been piously believed that those prayers and sacrifices that we offer for the dead who are actually in hell, that God applies whatever graces from those prayers to someone else in need of those prayers.

Au contraire Stuborn!  The OP is not liberalism.  In no way, shape, or form does it negate or is it in any way contrary to your quote from Sacred Scripture.  The point is that God can take your prayers and sacrifices and use them in such a way as to give an individual the grace to sincerely repent.  If one sincerely repents he is indeed doing "the will of my Father who is in heaven."

Also, in no way, shape, or form did my OP indicate directly or indirectly that the prayers and sacrifices I made reference to were to try to effect an "eviction" from hell, but rather a merciful escape from going there in the first place.

OP is saying there is a "great Catholic truth" not being taught. I am asking where has the Church ever taught this in the past? If the Catholic Church has never taught this, well...then there is no truth...because of the fact that the Catholic Church already has the truth. Nothing is being added to it.

It follows, therefore, that the OP is merely a speculation based upon no theological grounds, whatsoever.

I cannot quote you "chapter and verse" at the present time for lack of my own personal time.  However, I will say this for the time being, the OP is not "merely a speculation based upon no theological grounds, whatsoever."

On the other hand if you have any clear theological grounds to refute what I stated in my OP, I would ask you to present them.

Also, I will leave you for the time being with the following material to ponder: "The practice of offering the holy Mass for the repose of the soul of the deceased originates in the early church.  From the beginning the church has honored the memory of the dead and offered prayers in suffrage [i.e., intercession] for them, above all the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, so that they may attain the beatific vision of God” .  How or if God intercedes is determined by God, not by us.  There is nothing in Church teaching which asserts that God is incapable of interceding in the way I stated in my OP.  After all He is omnipotent and what I asserted in my OP does not contradict any truth of Church teaching.  God, of course, can not contradict the truth including the infallible truth of His Holy Church which in no place excludes the power of God to act as I asserted when one prays and sacrifices for a deceased soul as I spoke of in my OP.  If you have proof contrary to this I would ask that you present it.

Praying for the repose of the souls of the deceased is rooted in the Old Testament. Judas Maccabees offered prayers and sacrifices for the Jєωιѕн soldiers who had died wearing pagan amulets, which were forbidden by the Torah. II Maccabees reads, “Turning to supplication, they prayed that the sinful deed might be fully blotted out” (12:43). Continuing, “(Judas Maccabees) took up a collection among all his soldiers, … which he sent to Jerusalem to provide for an expiatory sacrifice. In doing this he acted in a very excellent and noble way, inasmuch as he had the resurrection of the dead in view; for if he were not expecting the fallen to rise again, it would have been useless and foolish to pray for them in death. But if he did this with a view to the splendid reward that awaits those who had gone to rest in godliness, it was a holy and pious thought. Thus, he made atonement for the dead that they might be freed from sin” (12:46).

God gives grace to whom He will. Those graces are often contingent upon the prayers of the Church Triumphant (those in Heaven) and the Church Militant.

God can give grace to anyone, and most of the time it will be invisible to us here on earth. If God chose to give the grace of conversion to a ѕυιcιdє, for example, it wouldn't change the Church's behavior (denying Catholic burial) and the Church would be blameless.

But on the other hand, it is a Catholic truth that there is no inverse Canonization of non-saints, or "Canon of the Damned". The Church teaches that anyone dying in mortal sin, unrepentant, will go to Hell. But it's a mystery to us who dies unrepentant. We can never say for sure. That's why the Church doesn't have "burn in hell" parties for wicked men and women who have died. It's not just because that would be tacky. It's because it's not our place -- God will judge the soul, not us. We can pray for them.

I think it's quite reasonable to say that the Creator is not bound by time. Many in this thread seem to have a hard time comprehending this -- and it's understandable, since it's impossible to truly understand or wrap our minds around Almighty God. 

But we know with our intellect that God is eternal, and therefore is outside TIME as we know it. God knows what you're going to do with your free will. You can't surprise God. As God is deciding whether to give graces to a given person on his deathbed, He can (and almost certainly does!) take into account who WILL pray for that person until the end of time. Only God could do this.

To call the OP "ridiculous" "unfounded" or any other negative adjective is to claim that God is bound by time just like the rest of us. It would be saying "He can't foresee the future", or, "any future prayers don't 'count' for Him, because He plods through time, second to second, just like the rest of us." That, my friends, would be both erroneous and blasphemous.

Let's clear a few things up:

* This isn't about "good hope for one's salvation". A wicked person, or ѕυιcιdє, dying is always a sad thing for any Catholic, priest, etc. but like I said, there's a reason we don't have "burn in hell" parties. It's because, in the end, WE DON'T KNOW WITH METAPHYSICAL CERTAINTY. We might be morally certain they are in hell, but that's not the same as they are certainly roasting in hell.

* This also isn't about the frequency with which God bestows the grace of a deathbed or last-minute conversion. It is probably quite rare.

The only point I'm trying to make is that for God, a future prayer is as good as a present or past prayer. There is no "time" for God. He is completely above and outside our concept and experience of time.

Stubborn, do you believe that God takes into account the prayers and sacrifices of the Faithful (those who are not helpless, which includes the Church Triumphant and the Church Militant), when He is deciding whether to give signal (or special) graces to a given person?