Wednesday, March 27, 2013

Fr. Maciel's Fancy Cars: the Two Tone Fully Loaded Chrysler circa 1957




not sure which one.....need to get the color right


A note from witness JJBM a propos

 "Although I only saw MM's black Mercedes on videotape, I rode once on his 'special edition' two color
1957 Chrysler, that he had bought CASH in Tangiers that same year.

Around August 15th. 1957 Maciel arrived in that fancy latest model at the
Seminary of Lugo (Galicia, Spain), where we, LC members, were spending the
summer vacation near "Saint Elisabeth's Fields" on the Miño River. Neftalí
Sánchez Tinoco, a Mexican LC theology student at the Gregorian University
was accompanying MM in Spain all through that year as his driver. Neftalí
arrived wearing unusual light blue trousers and a bright jacket. Most of
the LC community group were that afternoon at the Fields . A few of us
had remained at the seminary,  still recovering from having drank 
spoiled powder milk that morning supplied to us in Rome by the American Forces at the
large base in Leghorn, thanks to the intervention of Fr. Rafael Arumí
aided by the Mexican-American student, Santiago Coindreau Farias.

Maciel always said that the 1957 special edition Chrysler had been given to
him as a gift by Mrs. Josefita Pérez Jiménez,  daughter of the
former Venezuelan dictator of the same name. BUT, many years later
(around August 3rd. 1992) in a lengthy conversation at the Posada de la
Soledad in the city of Morelia, Mexico, Neftalí Sanchez Tinoco
told me that the Josefita story was not true, and that he himself had
accompanied Maciel the day he bought the care CASH.  We know that Tangiers
was an international center of drug traffic and prostitution, and some of
the 1950's Legionaries found out also that Maciel himself and Andrés García
Vega (our superior at the LC school in Cobreces, Santander, Spain) sometimes
traveled  to the north of Africa to change US dollars on the
black market.

I must add that the Chrysler acquisition happened in the middle year of
the first Vatican investigation (1956-1959), when Maciel was fobidden from contacting us
 after the Vatican had appointed Fr. Luis Ferreira Correa as the LC vicar general.

PS
Dr. Arturo Jurado (LC 1949-1963) and I have been told that Frs. Neftalí Sanchez
Tinoco and Santiago Coindreau Farías are still formally members of the Legion
At this moment Fr. Neftali works as a priest in the City of Morelia, Michoacan state, Mexico, while Fr. Coindreau Farias appears as a retired US Army Coronel Chaplain living in southern USA."