In recent times, "Cardinal Controversy" has found himself under fire for:

• Attacking the Labour Party over its condemnation of the Scottish National Party
  
• Criticising Tony Blair for his stance on abortion and Boots the chemist for giving condoms to teenagers
  
• Likening abortion to the Dunblane shootings
  
• Comparing homosexuality to a physical handicap.

The 73-year-old is unapologetic for his forthright nature: "I get letters from people saying I shouldn't meddle in politics.

"I let my conscience and my instincts guide me."

Sean Brickell reports: "The girl's parents are not Catholics"

He told a newspaper interviewer: "I don't do it to get a kick out of it. I do it because it's the right thing for me to do.

"When the country stops paying attention to what the church is saying, then we really are in a bad way.

"I let my conscience guide me"

"To be able to put forward the Christian viewpoint in a way that makes people think, I regard that as a role I have in society."

The son of a miner and steel worker who lost his job during the Depression, Thomas Winning grew up in Motherwell.

"Being Catholic wasn't always convenient," he recalled. ""There was one part of the main street down to the school where you were apt to be caught by the jersey and asked if you were a Protestant or a Catholic.

"Many's the time I denied my faith to get to school on time."

A life in the priesthood

In December 1998, he celebrated the 50th anniversary of his ordination as a priest after studying at the Scots College in Rome. He took his vows in St John Lateran's Basilica, the Pope's own cathedral.

The Pope supports the scheme

One of the high points in his lifetime came in 1982, when the Pope's visit to Scotland was set to be cancelled because of the Falklands War.

Archbishop Winning worked behind the scenes and the trip was saved when the Pope decided to visit Argentina as well as Scotland.

The resulting gathering at Bellahouston Park in Glasgow was the biggest gathering of Scottish Catholics.

In 1994, he became a cardinal - only the second cardinal resident in Scotland since the Reformation. Thousands of pilgrims travelled to Rome for the occasion, during which the Pope quipped: "You have always been what is called a man of the people."

'Changing attitudes'

Of his financial scheme begun two years ago to persuade women not to have abortions, he says firmly: "I'm more interested in changing attitudes than changing legislation."