Pope’s visit to city nearly scrapped by Falklands War

POPE John Paul II’s iconic 1982 visit to Glasgow was saved through frantic diplomacy by the late Cardinal Thomas Winning after it was nearly scrapped because of the Falklands War, it has been claimed.

Former editor of The Tablet Magazine Catherine Pepinster has said Cardinal Winning was instrumental in bringing pressure on the Vatican not to cancel the UK trip amid fears the pontiff was appearing to favour one side of the conflict over the other.

The cardinal organised telegrams from key sections of Scottish catholic society urging the Pope to go ahead with the visit, and even brought the Moderator of the Church of Scotland onboard alongside the Scottish bishops.

He also travelled to Rome to speak to Pope John Paul in person.

The 1982 visit was the first ever made by a reigning Pope to the UK, drawing huge interest from the public and the media.

Pope John Paul travelled to nine cities and held an open air mass at Bellahouston park which drew a crowd of 300,000 people.

Ms Pepinster makes the claim in a new book – titled The Keys and The Kingdom – which documents relations between Britain and the Holy See.

“Winning went into overdrive,” Ms Pepinster writes, “getting every Catholic lay organisation in Scotland to telegram the Pope urging him not to cancel his visit and then organising a telegram from the Scottish bishops.”

“He does seem to have been instrumental in ensuring it got back on track,” Ms Pepinster told the Scottish Catholic Observer.

The book goes on to reveal the Falklands were again to become a live question on the election of Pope Francis, as the Foreign Office were concerned that as Archbishop of Buenos Aires, the new pontiff had talked about ‘Las Malvinas’ being ‘usurped’ by the British.

This led to the Foreign Office sending a delegation to Rome following Pope Francis’ election to assert the Britishness of the Islands.