[pgyanke]

Is the current Pope saying that the last Pope was mistaken in thinking that hell was not a "place"?

This language of place is, according to the Pope, inadequate to describe the realities involved, since it is tied to the temporal order in which this world and we exist. In this he is applying the philosophical categories used by the Church in her theology and saying what St. Thomas Aquinas said long before him.

"Incorporeal things are not in place after a manner known and familiar to us, in which way we say that bodies are properly in place; but they are in place after a manner befitting spiritual substances, a manner that cannot be fully manifest to us." [St. Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae, Supplement, Q69, a1, reply 1]

Source

[HaveHadEnough]

...but they are in place after a manner befitting spiritual substances, a manner that cannot be fully manifest to us.

Yes, that clears things up. Thank you.

[pissant]

St. Aquinas. A giant in the histroy of Christianity.