Catholics very much believe in a spiritual afterlife that exists now, a Heaven that exists now, that souls who have passed on are conscious now.

You may be getting that mixed up with the fact that Catholics also believe that one day, every soul will be reunited with their "resurrected" bodies, which will be like your old body but far more glorious. The ultimate reunion of the physical and spiritual which is typically interpreted to be "on hold" for now, until after Jesus comes back to Earth etc etc.

But is everyone just unconscious until that day? No.