Cardinal Thomas Winning, leader of Scotland's Roman Catholics, died suddenly today. He was understood to have suffered another heart attack at his home in Newlands, Glasgow. The 76-year-old was discharged from the city's Victoria Infirmary on Friday where he was admitted on June 8 after a heart attack.
Cardinal Thomas Winning was the man who made the Catholic voice more high-profile than ever in his native Scotland, and whose own voice was well known in the Vatican's corridors of power. The genial exterior hid a wily political mind which made his public pronouncements feared by many politicians. But it was his offer of money and support to pregnant women as an alternative to abortion which put him on the world stage.
Politically left of centre, Thomas Winning was conservative in church matters. He had no truck with abortion, spoke out against homosexuality and never offered any support for campaigners for married priests. His personal loyalty to Pope John Paul II was solid and as Archbishop of Glasgow he was instrumental in keeping the papal trip to Britain in 1983 on track when the Falklands War looked set to cause the pontiff to cancel.
