It may be a farce in your mind, but your mind is not the Church. St. Augustine said a lot of things, as did many of the Church Fathers that were corrected or treated as heresy by the Church.
The Church is greater than the sum of its earthly parts due to the guidance of the Holy Spirit. That is why errant men can be a part of the inerrant Church.
New Advent has this to say on the physical location of hell: The Church has decided nothing on this subject; hence we may say hell is a definite place; but where it is, we do not know. St. Chrysostom reminds us: “We must not ask where hell is, but how we are to escape it” (In Rom., hom. xxxi, n. 5, in P.G., LX, 674). St. Augustine says: “It is my opinion that the nature of hell-fire and the location of hell are known to no man unless the Holy Ghost made it known to him by a special revelation”, (De Civ. Dei, XX, xvi, in P.L., XLI, 682).
Hell is a state of the greatest and most complete misfortune, as is evident from all that has been said. The damned have no joy whatever, and it were better for them if they had not been born (Matthew 26:24).
Hell could be a place; it could be a state. All that matters is that it is a really bad place to be.
???