This Turbulent Priest: The Life of Cardinal Winning - Hardcover

McGinty, Stephen

9780002740838: This Turbulent Priest: The Life of Cardinal Winning

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0002740834 ISBN 13: 9780002740838

Publisher: HarperCollins, 2003

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.

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Review:

'Stephen McGinty can take satisfaction from a beautifully-written and thoroughly-researched book.' -- Sunday Herald, November 2, 2003

'honest and readable biography.' - Richard Holloway -- The Scotsman

'one of the several strengths of this book [is] that its subject is presented in the round.' Tom Devine -- The Herald, November 1, 2003

'powerful' -- Mail on Sunday (Scotland) November 2, 2003

Synopsis:

Cardinal Winning was an outspoken and unashamed champion of traditional Catholic values who became a constant thorn in the government's side. The son of an unemployed miner in Lanarkshire, he grew up in the 1930s, a time of great hostility to Roman Catholics; he himself was bullied and forced to renounce his faith in the face of Protestant hostility. As an adult he fought hard against the repression of Catholics and the "loose morals" of an increasingly secular society. Strongly anti-abortion and anti-homosexuality, and a bit of a misogynist, he strongly defended the poor and the unemployed when he was Archbishop of Glasgow. Despite being beset by ill health and insecurity, he became (in 1994) only the third Scottish Cardinal of the 20th century. His sharp tongue often landed him in hot water; he compared abortion to the practices of the Nazis and accused Prince Charles of "woolly theology" when Charles criticized the Vatican's stance on divorce. In addition, he was something of a closet nationalist who was privately keen to see an independent Scotland.

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