Pope John Paul II’s iconic 1982 visit to the UK was saved through frantic shuttle 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 that Cardinal Winning was instrumental in bringing pressure on the Vatican not to cancel the 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 and make a direct appeal for trip to continue.

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 in Glasgow which drew a crowd of 300,000 people, an event which has entered the city's folklore.

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 saying much the same thing.”

“He does seem to have been instrumental in ensuring it got back on track,” Ms Pepinster told the Scottish Catholic Observer. “The Pope coming to Britain for the first time, when it was at war with such a Catholic country, was an issue, and he was the one who suggested the Pope go to Argentina as well to balance it out which the Pope did. It seems to have been the vital compromise.”

The Herald:

The book goes on to reveal that the Falklands issue resurfaced after the election of Pope Francis, as the Foreign Office were concerned that the former Archbishop of Buenos Aires had previously talked about ‘Las Malvinas’ being ‘usurped’ by the British.

This led to the Foreign Office sending a delegation to reassert the Britishness of the Islands.

The book also details Cardinal Winning’s relationship with former Prime Minister Tony Blair, and Ms Pepinster suggests the cardinal’s later political friendship with the SNP must ‘have played quite a part in helping the SNP win over many Catholic voters from Labour.’

The section on Scotland also recounts Cardinal Keith O’Brien’s fall from grace, which she describes as the ‘most traumatic event in the history of the Scottish Church.’

Ms Pepinster says she was inspired to write the book after leaving The Tablet, and her research draws on a lot of what she learned about the Church in 13 years as editor.

She says that though the relationship between the British Government and the Pope is ‘healthy now,’ with cooperation on areas like human trafficking, the Foreign Office is still at times unsure of what to make of the Vatican.

“They’re not sure at times if it’s a tiny state like San Marino or a vast superpower like China,” she said. “Although recent ambassadors have been quite successful.

“However I’ve been in Rome this past week and there is concern over Brexit. The Vatican is still invested in the idea of the European project and Britain’s retreat from that is an issue.”