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The Catholic Church has never, ever taught that indulgences lessened time in purgatory.

How then, do you explain the "Sabbatine Privilage"?

The name Sabbatine Privilege is derived from the apocryphal Bull "Sacratissimo uti culmine" of John XXII, 3 March, 1322. In this Bull the pope is made to declare that the Mother of God appeared to him, and most urgently recommended to him the Carmelite Order and its confratres and consorores. The Blessed Virgin asked that John, as Christ's representative on earth, should ratify the indulgences which He had already granted in heaven (a plenary indulgence for the members of the Carmelite Order and a partial indulgence, remitting the third part of the temporal punishment due to their sins, for the members of the confraternity); she herself would graciously descend on the Saturday (Sabbath after their death and liberate and conduct to heaven all who were in purgatory.

The Sabbatine privilege thus consists essentially in the early liberation from purgatory, through the special intercession and petition of Mary, which she graciously exercises in favour of her devoted servants preferentially -- as we may assume -- on the day consecrated to her, Saturday.

- Catholic Encyclopedia
http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/13289b.htm

I am somewhat puzzled by Sanormal's assertion as well. How then are we to interpret this:

A partial indulgence commutes only a certain portion of the penalty; and this portion is determined in accordance with the penitential discipline of the early Church. To say that an indulgence of so many days or years is granted means that it cancels an amount of purgatorial punishment equivalent to that which would have been remitted, in the sight of God, by the performance of so many days or years of the ancient canonical penance. Here, evidently, the reckoning makes no claim to absolute exactness; it has only a relative value.
God alone knows what penalty remains to be paid and what its precise amount is in severity and duration. Finally, some indulgences are granted in behalf of the living only, while others may be applied in behalf of the souls departed. It should be noted, however, that the application has not the same significance in both cases. The Church in granting an indulgence to the living exercises her jurisdiction; over the dead she has no jurisdiction and therefore makes the indulgence available for them by way of suffrage (per modum suffragii), i.e. she petitions God to accept these works of satisfaction and in consideration thereof to mitigate or shorten the sufferings of the souls in Purgatory.
(Indulgences, scroll to VARIOUS KINDS OF INDULGENCES)

Let's keep in mind a few guardrails for our discussion of the Sabbatine Priviledge.

1. There is no time or space in Purgatory.
2. Only dead saints are there.
3. There are no clocks, watches, daytimers, calendars or organizers in Purgatory.

There is no Saturday in Purgatory (see above). Saturdays only occur for the living. Note that the Bull says, "especially on Saturdays, the day consecrated by the Church to the Blessed Virgin."

Read in context the Bull underlines Mary's constant intercession for the faithfully departed and our immitation of her faithfulness not some magic formula to spring souls on Saturday.

And that's no bull.