We can be absolutely certain that so long as British history is told, the name of Winston Churchill will live as among the very greatest of Britain’s heroes and leaders.
A politician, however outstanding, will always be the subject of controversy, but his personal stature can transcend such controversy and grow into a legend more significant of truth than the historians’ analyses.
As the incarnation of British resistance in 1940, as the war hero overthrown by the process of democracy in 1945, as the veteran Prime Minister of the critical struggle with the Communist empire until the age of 80, Winston Churchill will grow rather than diminish with the years and centuries.
Sir Winston Churchill, whose religious values partake rather more of the Deist outlook of his great 18thcentury ancestor than of the dogmatic Christian, has nevertheless stood for the primacy of the spirit and sound morals and traditions.
Catholics must be grateful to him for this moral leadership, as they must also be grateful to him for his resistance to godless Communism.
Reporting his own audience with the Pope after the liberation of Rome, Sir Winston wrote: “We had no lack of topics for conversation. The one that bulked largest at this audience, as it had done with his predecessor 18 years before, was the danger of Communism. I have always had the greatest dislike of it; and should I ever have the honour of another audience with the Supreme Pontiff I should not hesitate to recur to the subject.” From The Catholic Herald, April 7, 1955