Cardinal Thomas Winning, the leader of the Catholic Church in Scotland, died yesterday, two days after being discharged from hospital. He was aged 76.
He had been treated in hospital in Glasgow following a heart attack. Though "he appeared to be in good spirits" he died suddenly yesterday morning, according to a church spokesman.
Cardinal Winning became Archbishop of Glasgow in 1994 and gave the Catholic Church a higher profile in mainly Protestant Scotland. Politically left-of-centre, he was unflinchingly conservative in church matters. He had no truck with abortion and spoke out against homosexuality.
When he was elevated to cardinal in 1994 his personal popularity among Scotland's Catholic community made Vatican insiders whisper his name as a possible successor to John Paul. Hundreds of Scots travelled to Rome to see him installed as cardinal.
Less than a year after becoming cardinal in August 1995, he faced the Scottish church's most difficult crisis this century when Bishop Roddy Wright ran off with a woman and admitting he fathered a child by another.
The church floundered in the face of the revelations. But Cardinal Winning was to return to the public arena with characteristic flair.
In January 1997 he accused Mr Tony Blair of gagging Labour MPs opposed to abortion. Later that year, his personal commitment to ending abortion became concrete when he launched a scheme under which women were offered counselling and financial support as an alternative to abortion. Cash flowed in from across the world and other Catholic dioceses sought to copy its success which earned praise from senior Vatican figures.
It too was to prove controversial, with pro-abortion campaigners decrying a decision to offer a 12-year-old girl money to stop her from having an abortion.
With the advent of the Scottish parliament, he became a high-profile backer of the campaign - promoted by the Stagecoach millionaire Brian Souter - to keep Section 28, the law which banned the promotion of homosexuality in schools. It was to earn him few favours from the Scottish coalition government and he was branded a "bigot" for describing homosexual acts as "perversions".
The death of his English counterpart, Cardinal Basil Hume, in 1999 made him Britain's most senior Catholic, but characteristically he did little to assume the mantle of leader to the whole British flock and made clear to his inner circle he had no ambition to become Pope.
But that inner circle was itself to become a high-profile casualty in a series of scandals which shook the faith of church-goers. His press secretary, Father Noel Barry, won a libel case against the Sun newspaper during which he revealed his one-time love for a former nun but denied sleeping with her.
Later that year another priest, Father David Brown, was admonished after being found guilty of sexually assaulting his housekeeper.
Among tributes to the cardinal yesterday, the First Minister, Mr Henry McLeish, said Scotland had lost "one of her greatest sons". "Whilst we would never agree on everything, I always found him a good listener as well as a passionate advocate of the causes he held dear."
A statement released by Downing Street said the British Prime Minister, Mr Blair, was "shocked and saddened to hear of Cardinal Winning's sudden death". His strong moral leadership and commitment to social justice were renowned, the statement said.
The leader of the Catholic Church in England and Wales, Archbishop Cormac Murphy-O'Connor, said the cardinal was an outstanding leader of the church in Scotland and beyond.
"His humour, dedication, utter loyalty and unstinting defence of the Catholic Church will long be remembered. I deeply mourn a close friend." Mr Charles Kennedy MP, leader of the Liberal Democrats, said: "He was a most formidable Scot and a person held in the highest regard internationally. Public life will be much the poorer for his passing."
The SNP leader, Mr John Swinney, also mourned the death of the cardinal who, he said, would be sorely missed by the whole nation.
Cardinal Desmond Connell has written to Mgr Clancy, vicar-general of Glasgow, to say he was greatly shocked at the news of Cardinal Winning's death. His outstanding service, he said, had been "for us all both inspiration and support".
Cardinal Winning was present in Rome last February at the consistory at which Archbishop Connell of Dublin was elevated to the cardinalate.