Is Hell Empty?

"Enter ye in at the narrow gate: for wide is the gate, and broad is the way that leads to destruction, and many there are who go in thereat. How narrow is the gate, and strait is the way that leads to life: and few there are that find it!" Matthew 17:13–14
Our Holy Father is back in the news after controversial remarks he made on primetime Italian TV: "What I am going to say is not a dogma of faith but my own personal view: I like to think of hell as empty; I hope it is."
Numerous people have weighed in either defending or slamming the pope over these words. But how are we to understand his comments, in light of 2,000 years of Church teaching and tradition?

