More than two decades ago while studying philosophy for the first time at Yercaud, I heard this particular theory of hell (from Fr Stan), which quite startled me. He said that there is hell, but there's no one therein! It was quite strange for me to hear that, after a whole lifetime of hearing that all bad people end up in hell. Surely to now imagine an empty hell was quite a task. (Of course, in the later years, visiting the Karunapuram Shrine and viewing all the graphic depiction of people being roasted on fire by two devils, or being deep-fried in boiling oil... was quite amusing!).
Recently reading a particular court case of a woman being tried for a hit-and-run case which took place 7 years ago, and which he vehemently denied, even after showing clear evidence for the accident, the author spoke something similar about hell. This particular woman, kept denying the accident in the belief that God told her that she only hit a pole and not a person, and after much evidence and proof, she accepted to only hitting a homeless person (as if there was no difference between a pole and a homeless person!). The author of the article speaks of hell as something locked up from the inside. And that we put ourselves there and only we can let ourselves out - but often, don't! In the case of this woman, she put herself there, her self-deception put her there, her lies put her in... and she made herself at home!
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