Book description
The life of the spiritual pugilist and eminent Scottish Cardinal Thomas
Winning, leader of Scotland's Catholics until his death in June 2001.
Stephen McGinty tells for the first time the full life story of Cardinal
Thomas Winning, arguably the most controversial and pugnacious
archbishop in recent British history.
Cardinal Winning's father was an unemployed miner in Lanarkshire, whose
illegitimate birth remained a family secret Winning took to his grave.
Raised in a crucible of anti-Catholicism, Winning - as priest, bishop
and cardinal - set about moving the Catholic Church, by sheer force of
his own personality, out of the ghetto and into the mainstream. His
stated ambition was to build the City of God on the streets of Glasgow,
but his pastoral plan for spiritual renewal fell on somewhat stony
ground - partly because of problems with his priests, partly through his
own impatience. As Archbishop of Glasgow, he almost bankrupted his
diocese with a debt of £10 million, yet still found the funds to offer
cash to dissuade women from having an abortion.
Cardinal Winning never ceased to be an outspoken and unashamed champion
of traditional Catholic values, fiercely anti-abortion and
anti-homosexual acts. Too conservative for the Conservative Party yet
too socialist for New Labour, he picked fights with both, while his
sympathy for the poor remained constant.
Before his death in 2001, Cardinal Winning gave dozens of hours of
exclusive interviews to the author, who has also enjoyed the assistance
of Winning's family, friends and colleagues. In exploring the
complicated and conflicting character of the cardinal, Stephen McGinty
reveals the vulnerable, prejudiced and quietly spiritual man beneath the
red hat and the new Scotland he helped to forge. Stephen McGinty is a
senior feature writer with the Scotsman newspaper. He has also worked
for the Sunday Times in London and the Glasgow Herald. He won the
Scottish Young Journalist of the Year Award in 1995 and lives in
Glasgow. This is his first book.
