Get ready for conspiracy season, opening day is almost here.

Prepare thyself for an onslaught of information, speculation, and defamation over the next few weeks as the Pope prepares to visit Fatima this month.

Speculation about the contents of the famous third secret of Fatima had become such a cottage industry among among some Catholics that they were determined not to let a little thing like the secret being revealed in the year 2000 get in their way.  If you have a successful business model, you stick with it I suppose.

It is fair to say that the Pope’s visit to Fatima will, of course, make the famous secret once again a hot topic as it is intensely interesting.  However, Antonio Socci’s book “The Fourth Secret” being recently translated into English will only add fuel to the fire.

Socci alleges that there were two third secrets of Fatima.  One, the released description of the vision of the Bishop in white and another that followed after the phrase “In Portugal the dogma of the Faith will always be preserved etc.”

I am obviously in the camp that believes the Pope and Sr. Lucia when they said that all was released.  With that said, I think some observers have raised reasonable questions about some apparent discrepancies surrounding previous statements about the secret.

But the Vatican is in a catch-22 here.  In order to quiet the conspiracy theorists, they could address some of the alleged discrepancies and put them to rest once and for all.  But, and this is a big but, they simply cannot do that.  To even address the questions would turn the conspiracy cottage industry into a huge growth sector overnight. 

Every word or clarification issued would be dissected and dissected again opening up even more inconsistencies and discrepancies resulting in the world’s first perpetual motion conspiracy machine.  So the Vatican continues to do what it must, it stays silent.

So understanding all this, a reasonable man is left to decide.  Did the Pope lie?  Did Sr. Lucia lie?

You know where I stand.  What say you?