James Addison Baker III (born April 28, 1930) is an American attorney, diplomat and statesman. A member of the Republican Party, he served as the 10th White House Chief of Staff and 67th United States Secretary of the Treasury under President Ronald Reagan and the 61st U.S. Secretary of State before returning as the 16th White House Chief of Staff under President George H. W. Bush.

Born in Houston, Baker attended the Hill School and Princeton University before serving in the United States Marine Corps. After graduating from the University of Texas School of Law, he pursued a legal career. He became a close friend of George H. W. Bush and worked for Bush's unsuccessful 1970 campaign for the United States Senate. After the campaign, he served in various positions for President Richard Nixon. In 1975, he was appointed Under Secretary of Commerce for Gerald Ford. He served until May 1976, ran Ford's 1976 presidential campaign, and unsuccessfully sought election as the Attorney General of Texas.

Baker ran Bush's unsuccessful campaign for the 1980 Republican presidential nomination, but made a favorable impression on the Republican nominee, Ronald Reagan. Reagan appointed Baker as his White House Chief of Staff, and Baker remained in that position until 1985, when he became the Secretary of the Treasury. As Treasury Secretary, he arranged the Plaza Accord and the Baker Plan. He resigned as Treasury Secretary to manage Bush's successful 1988 campaign for president. After the election, Bush appointed Baker to the position of Secretary of State. As Secretary of State, he helped oversee U.S. foreign policy during the end of the Cold War and dissolution of the Soviet Union, as well as during the Gulf War. After the Gulf War, Baker served another stint as White House Chief of Staff from 1992 to 1993.

Baker remained active in business and public affairs after Bush's defeat in the 1992 presidential election. He served as a United Nations envoy to Western Sahara and as a consultant to Enron. During the Florida recount following the 2000 presidential election, he managed George W. Bush's legal team in the state. He served as the co-chairman of the Iraq Study Group, which Congress formed in 2006 to study Iraq and the ongoing Iraq War. He serves on the World Justice Project and the Climate Leadership Council. Baker is the namesake of the James A. Baker III Institute for Public Policy at Rice University.

Early life, education, and pre-political career
James Addison Baker III was born in Houston at 1216 Bissonnet St., the son of James A. Baker Jr. (1892–1973) and Ethel Bonner (née Means) Baker (August 6, 1894 – April 26, 1991). His father was a partner of Houston law firm Baker Botts. Baker has a sister, Bonner Baker Moffitt. His grandfather was attorney and banker Captain James A. Baker, and his great-grandfather was jurist and politician Judge James A. Baker.

Baker attended the Kinkaid School in Houston, before graduating from the Hill School, a boarding school in Pottstown, Pennsylvania. He graduated cum laude with an A.B. in history from Princeton University in 1952 after completing a 188-page senior thesis, titled "Two Sides of the Conflict: Bevin vs. Bevan", under the supervision of Walter P. Hall. He was a member of Phi Delta Theta. Baker was a member of the United States Marine Corps from 1952 to 1954, attaining the rank of first lieutenant as a naval gunfire officer serving in the Mediterranean Sea aboard the . He remained in the Marine Corps Reserve until 1958, and rose to the rank of captain. He earned a Bachelor of Laws (1957) from the University of Texas School of Law and began to practice law in Texas.

From 1957 to 1975, he practiced law at Andrews & Kurth after the anti-nepotism policy of his family firm, Baker Botts, prevented him from being offered a job there.

Early political career
Baker's first wife, the former Mary Stuart McHenry, was active in the Republican Party, working on the congressional campaigns of George H. W. Bush. Originally, Baker had been a Democrat but too busy trying to succeed in a competitive law firm to worry about politics, and considered himself apolitical. His wife's influence led him to politics and the Republican Party. George H.W. Bush and Baker were regular tennis partners at the Houston Country Club in the late 1950s, and when Bush decided to vacate his congressional seat and run for the U.S. Senate in 1970, he supported Baker's decision to run in his place. However, Baker changed his mind about running for Congress when his wife was diagnosed with breast cancer; she died in February 1970.

Bush then encouraged Baker to become active in politics to help deal with the grief of his wife's death, something that Bush himself had done when his daughter, Pauline Robinson Bush (1949–1953), died of leukemia. Baker became chairman of Bush's Senate campaign in Harris County, Texas. Though Bush lost to Lloyd Bentsen in the election, Baker continued in politics, becoming the finance chairman of the Texas Republican Party in 1971. The following year, he was selected as Gulf Coast Regional Chairman for the Richard Nixon presidential campaign. In 1973 and 1974, in the wake of the Nixon Administration's implosion over Watergate, Baker returned to full-time law practice at Andrews & Kurth.

Baker's time away from politics was brief, however. In August 1975, he was appointed Under Secretary of Commerce by President Gerald Ford, succeeding John K. Tabor. He served until May 1976, and was succeeded by Edward O. Vetter. Baker resigned to serve as campaign manager of Ford's unsuccessful 1976 election campaign. In 1978, with George H. W. Bush as his campaign manager, Baker ran unsuccessfully for Attorney General of Texas, losing to future Texas governor Mark White.

Reagan administration

White House Chief of Staff (1981–1985)
In 1981, Baker was named White House Chief of Staff by President Ronald Reagan, in spite of the fact that Baker managed the presidential campaigns of Gerald Ford in 1976 and of George Bush in 1980 opposing Reagan. He served in that capacity until 1985. Baker is considered to have had a high degree of influence over the first Reagan administration, particularly in domestic policy.

In 1982, conservative activists Howard Phillips (founder of the Conservative Caucus) and Clymer Wright of Houston joined in an unsuccessful effort to convince Reagan to dismiss Baker as chief of staff. They claimed that Baker, a former Democrat and a Bush political intimate, was undermining conservative initiatives in the administration. Reagan rejected the Phillips-Wright request. Around 1983 Baker became heavily dispirited and tired due to the weight of his job; he attempted to become National Security Advisor, a change to which Reagan initially agreed, but some of Reagan's other advisers dissuaded him from naming Baker to the position. According to his wife, Baker was "so anxious to get out of [his job]" that he gave some consideration to the prospect of becoming Commissioner of Baseball, but he ultimately did not pursue that.

Baker managed Reagan's 1984 re-election campaign in which Reagan polled a record 525 electoral votes total (of a possible 538), and received 58.8% of the popular vote to Walter Mondale's 40.6%.

Secretary of the Treasury

In 1985, Reagan named Baker as United States Secretary of the Treasury, in a job-swap with then-Secretary Donald Regan, a former Merrill Lynch officer who became chief of staff. Reagan rebuked Phillips and Wright for having waged a "campaign of sabotage" against Baker.

In 1985, Baker received the U.S. Senator John Heinz Award for Greatest Public Service by an Elected or Appointed Official, an award given out annually by Jefferson Awards.

During the Reagan administration, Baker also served on the Economic Policy Council, where he played an instrumental role in achieving the passage of the administration's tax and budget reform package in 1981. He also played a role in the development of the American Silver Eagle and American Gold Eagle coins, which both were released in 1986.

Baker also served on Reagan's National Security Council, and remained Treasury Secretary until 1988, during which time he also served as campaign chairman for George H. W. Bush's successful presidential bid.

Bush administration

Secretary of State

President George H. W. Bush appointed Baker Secretary of State in 1989. Baker served in this role through 1992. From 1992 to 1993, he served as Bush's White House Chief of Staff, the same position that he had held from 1981 to 1985 during the first Reagan Administration.

In May 1990, Soviet Union's reformist leader Mikhail Gorbachev visited the U.S. for talks with President Bush; there, he agreed to allow a reunified Germany to be a part of NATO. He later revealed that he had agreed to do so because James Baker promised that NATO troops would not be posted to eastern Germany and that the military alliance would not expand into Eastern Europe. On February 9, 1990, Baker, as the US Secretary of State, assured Gorbachev: "There would be no extension of… NATO one inch to the east".
 But Bush ignored his assurances and later pushed for NATO's eastwards expansion. In the Bush administration, Baker was a proponent of the notion that the USSR should be kept territorially intact, arguing that it would be destabilizing to have the USSR's nuclear arsenal in multiple new states. Bush and US defence secretary Dick Cheney were proponents for Soviet dissolution. Soviet states forced action by holding referendums on independence.

When Ukraine became independent, Baker sought to ensure that Ukraine would give up its nuclear weapons.

On January 9, 1991, during the Geneva Peace Conference with Tariq Aziz in Geneva, Baker declared that "If there is any user of (chemical or biological weapons), our objectives won't just be the liberation of Kuwait, but the elimination of the current Iraqi regime...." Baker later acknowledged that the intent of this statement was to threaten a retaliatory nuclear strike on Iraq, and the Iraqis received his message.
Baker helped to construct the 34-nation alliance that fought alongside the United States in the Gulf War.

Baker also spent considerable time negotiating one-on-one with the parties in order to organize the Madrid Conference of October 30 – November 1, 1991, in an attempt to revive the Israeli–Palestinian peace process through negotiations involving Israel and the Palestinians, as well as Arab countries, including Jordan, Lebanon, and Syria.

Baker was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1991.

Policies on the Israeli-Arab conflict

Before the 1988 election, he and a team of some Middle Eastern policies experts created a report detailing the Palestine-Israel interactions. His team included Dennis Ross and many others who were soon appointed to the new Bush Administration.

Baker blocked the recognition of Palestine by threatening to cut funding to agencies in the United Nations. As far back as 1988, the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) issued a "declaration of statehood" and changed the name of its observer delegation to the United Nations from the PLO to Palestine.

Baker warned publicly, "I will recommend to the President that the United States make no further contributions, voluntary or assessed, to any international organization which makes any changes in the PLO's status as an observer organization."

In May 1989, he gave a speech at the annual conference of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee. He called for Israel to "lay aside once and for all, the unrealistic vision of a greater Israel", cease the construction of Israeli settlements in West Bank and Gaza, forswear annexation of more territory, and to treat Palestinians "as neighbors who deserve political rights". Israeli officials and public were highly offended due to the tone of his speech, though his address called for little more than his predecessors.

Baker soon decided that Aaron David Miller and Daniel Kurtzer would be his principal aides in Middle Eastern policies. All three have been reported as leaning toward the policies of the Israeli Labor Party.

Baker was notable for making little and slow efforts towards improving the state of Israeli-Palestinian relations. When Bush was elected, he only received 29% of Jewish voters' support, and his reelection was thought to be imminent, so there was little pressure on the administration to make bold moves in diplomatic relations with Israel. Israeli leaders initially thought that Baker had a poor grasp of Middle Eastern issues – a perception exacerbated by his use of the term "Greater Israel" – and viewed Israel as a "problem for the United States" according to Moshe Arens. Baker proved willing to confront Israeli officials on statements they made contrary to American interests. After Israeli Deputy Foreign Minister Benjamin Netanyahu accused the United States of "building its policy on a foundation of distortion and lies," Baker banned Netanyahu from entering the State Department building, and refused to meet with him personally for the remainder of his tenure as secretary.

During his first eight months under the Bush administration, there were five meetings with the PLO, which is far less than his predecessors. All serious issues that Palestine sought to discuss, such as elections and representation in the Israeli government, were delegated to Egypt for decisions to be made.

More tensions rose in the Palestinian-Israeli conflict with a massive influx of Jewish people from the Soviet Union moved to Israel. The Israeli government decided to expand the population further into Palestinian territories. Amidst the growing support of Saddam Hussein in Palestine, due to his opposition toward Israel, and his invasion of Kuwait, and the beginning of the Gulf War, Baker decided that he would make some moves towards developing communications between Israel and Palestine.

Baker became the first American statesman to negotiate directly and officially with Palestinians in the Madrid Conference of 1991, which was the first comprehensive peace conference that involved every party involved in the Arab-Israeli conflict and the conference was designed to address all outstanding issues.

After this landmark event, he did not work to further improve Arab-Israeli relations. The administration forced Israel to halt the development of the 6,000 planned housing units, but the 11,000 housing units already under construction were permitted to be completed and inhabited with no penalty. In the meantime, Baker also tried to negotiate with the Syrian President Hafez al-Assad, in order to achieve a lasting peace between Israel and Syria.

However, Baker has been criticized for spending much of his tenure in a state of inaction regarding the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, which arguably led to further infringements on Palestinian rights and the growing radicalism of Arabs and Israelis.

White House Chief of Staff (1992–1993)
The 1992 election was complicated by the on-again-off-again candidacy of Ross Perot, who would end up taking 19% of the popular vote. In August, following the Democratic Convention, with Bush trailing Clinton in the polls by 24 points, Bush announced that Baker would return to the White House as Chief of Staff and as head of the re-election campaign. However, despite having run two winning campaigns for Ronald Reagan and one for Bush, Baker was unsuccessful in the second campaign for Bush, who lost to Clinton by 370 electoral votes to 168.

Post-Cabinet career

1993–2000

In 1993, Baker became the honorary chair of the James A. Baker III Institute of Public Policy at Rice University in Houston, Texas.

Also in 1993, the Enron Corporation hired Baker as a consultant within a month of his departure from the White House, and Enron said that Baker would have an opportunity to invest in any projects he developed. During his time at Enron, Baker tried to warn against the company's involvement with the Dabhol Power Station in India. Many of Baker's concerns proved correct, and the project became a key factor in the company's downfall.

Also in 1993, Baker joined Baker Botts as a senior partner, as well as the Carlyle Group (with the title of senior counsel).

In 1995, Baker published his memoirs of service as Secretary of State in a book entitled The Politics of Diplomacy: Revolution, War and Peace, 1989–1992 ().

In March 1997, Baker became the Personal Envoy of the UN Secretary-General for Western Sahara. In June 2004, he resigned from this position, frustrated over the lack of progress in reaching a complete settlement acceptable to both the government of Morocco and the pro-independence Polisario Front. He left behind the Baker II plan, accepted as a suitable basis of negotiations by the Polisario and unanimously endorsed by the Security Council, but rejected by Morocco.

In addition to the numerous recognitions received by Baker, he was presented with the prestigious Woodrow Wilson Award for public service on September 13, 2000, in Washington, D.C.

2000 presidential election and recount
In 2000, Baker served as chief legal adviser for George W. Bush during the 2000 presidential election campaign and oversaw the Florida recount. The 2008 film Recount covers the days following the controversial election.  Baker was interviewed during the making of the film, and British actor Tom Wilkinson portrayed him in it.

Roles during the Bush administration and Iraq War
Baker also advised George W. Bush on Iraq. When the U.S. occupation of Iraq began in 2003 he was one of the Bush administration's first choices to direct the Coalition Provisional Authority, but he was deemed too old. In December 2003, President George W. Bush appointed Baker as his special envoy to ask various foreign creditor nations to forgive or restructure $100 billion in international debts owed by the Iraq government which had been incurred during the tenure of Saddam Hussein.

State of Denial, a book by investigative reporter Bob Woodward, says that White House Chief of Staff Andrew Card urged President Bush to replace Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld with Baker following the 2004 presidential election. Bush later confirmed that he made such an offer to Baker but that he declined.  Bush would appoint another G. H. W. Bush Administration veteran, Robert Gates, instead, after the 2006 midterm elections. Baker was elected a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2008.

On March 15, 2006, Congress announced the formation of the Iraq Study Group, a high-level panel of prominent former officials charged by members of Congress with taking a fresh look at America's policy on Iraq. Baker was the Republican co-chairman along with Democratic Congressman Lee H. Hamilton, to advise Congress on Iraq. The Iraq Study Group examined a number of ideas, including one that would create a new power-sharing arrangement in Iraq that would give more autonomy to regional factions. On October 9, 2006, the Washington Post quoted co-chairman Baker as saying "our commission believes that there are alternatives between the stated alternatives, the ones that are out there in the political debate, of 'stay the course' and 'cut and run'".

Donald Trump
Baker voted for Donald Trump in the 2016 election, and said prior to the 2020 election that he would do so again. During a 2016 memorial service for Nancy Reagan, he commented to former Canadian Prime Minister Brian Mulroney that he believed there were parallels between the rise of Trump and the rise of Reagan. He later gave informal advice to Trump during his 2016 presidential campaign and suggested the appointment of Rex Tillerson as Secretary of State.

Other advisory positions

Baker serves on the Honorary Council of Advisers for the U.S.-Azerbaijan Chamber of Commerce.

Baker also serves as an honorary director on the board of directors at the Atlantic Council.

James Baker serves as an Honorary Co-Chair for the World Justice Project. The World Justice Project works to lead a global, multidisciplinary effort to strengthen the Rule of Law for the development of communities of opportunity and equity.

Baker is a leader of the Climate Leadership Council, along with Henry Paulson and George P. Shultz. In 2017, this group of "Republican elder statesmen" proposed that conservatives embrace a fee and dividend form of carbon tax (in which all revenue generated by the tax is rebated to the populace in the form of lump-sum dividends), as a policy to deal with anthropogenic climate change. The group also included Martin S. Feldstein and N. Gregory Mankiw.

Baker began service on the Rice University board of trustees in 1993.

Personal life
Baker met his first wife, the former Mary Stuart McHenry, of Dayton, Ohio, while on spring break in Bermuda with the Princeton University rugby team. They married in 1953. Together they had four sons, including James Addison Baker IV, a partner at Baker Botts. Mary Stuart Baker died of breast cancer in February 1970.

In 1973, Baker and Susan Garrett Winston, a divorcee and a close friend of Mary Stuart, were married.  Winston had two sons and a daughter with her former husband. In May 1977, she and Baker had a daughter, Mary Bonner Baker.

On June 15, 2002, Virginia Graeme Baker, the seven-year-old granddaughter of Baker, daughter of Nancy and James Baker IV, drowned due to suction entrapment in a spa. To promote greater safety in pools and spas, Nancy Baker gave testimony to the Consumer Product Safety Commission, and James Baker helped form an advocacy group, which led to the Virginia Graeme Baker Pool And Spa Safety Act (15 USC 8001). Another granddaughter, Rosebud Baker, is a stand-up comedian.

Awards and honors
Jefferson Awards for Public Service (1985)
Presidential Medal of Freedom (1991)
Golden Plate Award of the American Academy of Achievement (1998)
 Grand Cordon of the Order of the Rising Sun (2015)

Notes

References

Further reading

Works by
 1995: The Politics of Diplomacy. with Thomas M. DeFrank. New York: G.P. Putnam's Sons. .
 2006: "Work Hard, Study... And Keep Out of Politics!": Adventures and Lessons from an Unexpected Public Life. with Steve Fiffer. New York: G.P. Putnam's Sons. .

Works about
 Bryce, Robert, (2004). Cronies: Oil, the Bushes, and the Rise of Texas, America's Superstate. New York: Perseus Books Group. .

External links

 Baker, James III(Woodson Research Center, Fondren Library, Rice University, Houston, TX, US)
 James Addison Baker Papers at the Seeley G. Mudd Manuscript Library, Princeton University
 James A. Baker III Oral History Collection at the Seeley G. Mudd Manuscript Library, Princeton University
 Profile in the Daily Princetonian
 Biography on Baker Botts LLP website
 Baker Institute for Public Policy

 James Baker Oral History at Houston Oral History Project, November 20, 2007.

|-

|-

|-

|-

1930 births
20th-century American politicians
American campaign managers
American memoirists
Atlantic Council
The Carlyle Group people
Fellows of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences
George H. W. Bush administration cabinet members
George W. Bush administration personnel
Living people
Military personnel from Texas
Presidential Medal of Freedom recipients
Princeton University alumni
Reagan administration cabinet members
Texas lawyers
Texas Republicans
The Kinkaid School alumni
The Hill School alumni
United States Marine Corps officers
United States Under Secretaries of Commerce
United States Secretaries of State
United States Secretaries of the Treasury
University of Texas School of Law alumni
White House Chiefs of Staff
Writers from Houston
Rice University trustees
United States Marine Corps reservists

James Baker


The Catholic Church in Scotland (; ) overseen by the Scottish Bishops' Conference, is part of the worldwide Catholic Church headed by the Pope. After being firmly established in Scotland for nearly a millennium, the Catholic Church was outlawed following the Scottish Reformation in 1560. Throughout the centuries of religious persecution changes, several pockets in Scotland retained a significant pre-Reformation Catholic population, including Banffshire, the Hebrides, and more northern parts of the Highlands, Galloway at Terregles House, Munches House, Kirkconnell House, New Abbey and Parton House and at Traquair in Peebleshire.

In 1716, Scalan seminary was established in the Highlands and rebuilt in the 1760s by Bishop John Geddes, a well-known figure in Edinburgh during the Scottish Enlightenment. When Scottish national poet Robert Burns, who also gifted the Bishop with the volume now known as The Geddes Burns, wrote to a correspondent that "the first [that is, finest] cleric character I ever saw was a Roman Catholick", he was referring to Bishop John Geddes.

Catholic emancipation in 1793 and 1829 helped Catholics regain both religious and civil rights. In 1878, the Catholic hierarchy was formally restored.

Many Scottish Roman Catholics are the descendants of Irish immigrants and of Scottish Gaelic-speaking migrants from the Highlands and Islands who both moved into Scotland's cities and industrial towns during the 19th century, especially during the Highland Clearances, the Highland Potato Famine, and the similar famine in Ireland. However, there are also significant numbers of people of Italian, Lithuanian, and Polish descent, with more recent immigrants again boosting the numbers of continental Catholics of Eastern European descent in Scotland. Owing to immigration (overwhelmingly white European), it is estimated that, in 2009, there were about 850,000 Catholics in a country of 5.1 million.

The Gàidhealtachd has been both Catholic and Protestant in modern times. A number of Scottish Gaelic-speaking areas, including Barra, Benbecula, South Uist, Eriskay, and Moidart, are mainly Catholic. (See also the "Religion of the Yellow Stick".) Many of the most important figures in Scottish Gaelic literature, including Alasdair mac Mhaighstir Alasdair, Fr. Allan MacDonald, Dòmhnall Iain Dhonnchaidh, and Angus Peter Campbell, have been Catholics who have written frequently about the Catholic Church in their work. Furthermore, Scottish nationalist and literary scholar John Lorne Campbell and his wife, American ethnomusicologist Margaret Fay Shaw, who together helped lay the foundation for the modern Scottish Gaelic language revival, were both converts from Protestantism to Roman Catholicism.

In the 2011 census, 16% of the population of Scotland described themselves as being Catholic, compared with 32% affiliated with the Church of Scotland. Between 1994 and 2002, Catholic attendance in Scotland declined 19% to just over 200,000. By 2008, the Catholic Bishops' Conference of Scotland estimated that 184,283 attended Mass regularly.

History

Establishment

Christianity was probably introduced to what is now lowland Scotland from Roman soldiers stationed in the north of the province of Britannia. It is presumed to have survived among the Brythonic enclaves in the south of modern Scotland, but retreated as the pagan Anglo-Saxons advanced. Scotland was largely converted by Irish-Scots missions associated with figures such as St Columba from the fifth to the seventh centuries. These missions tended to found monastic institutions and collegiate churches that served large areas. Partly as a result of these factors, some scholars have identified a distinctive form of Celtic Christianity, in which abbots were more significant than bishops, attitudes to clerical celibacy were more relaxed, and there were some significant differences in practice with Roman Rite, particularly the form of tonsure and the method of calculating Easter, although most of these issues had been resolved by the mid-seventh century. After the reconversion of Scandinavian Scotland from the tenth century, Christianity under papal authority was the dominant religion of the kingdom.

Medieval Catholicism

In the Norman period the Scottish church underwent a series of reforms and transformations. With royal and lay patronage, a clearer parochial structure based around local churches was developed. Large numbers of new foundations, which followed continental forms of reformed monasticism, began to predominate and the Scottish church established its independence from England and developed a clearer diocesan structure, becoming a "special daughter of the see of Rome" but lacking leadership in the form of archbishops. In the Late Middle Ages the problems of schism in the Catholic Church allowed the Scottish Crown to gain greater influence over senior appointments and two archbishoprics had been established by the end of the fifteenth century. While some historians have discerned a decline of monasticism in the Late Middle Ages, the mendicant orders of friars grew, particularly in the expanding burghs, to meet the spiritual needs of the population. New saints and cults of devotion also proliferated. Despite problems over the number and quality of clergy after the Black Death in the fourteenth century, and some evidence of heresy in this period, the church in Scotland remained relatively stable before the Reformation in the sixteenth century.

Scottish Reformation

That remained the case until the Scottish Reformation in the mid-16th century, when the Church in Scotland broke with the papacy and adopted a Calvinist confession in 1560. At that point, the celebration of the Catholic mass was outlawed. Although officially illegal, the Catholic Church survived in parts of Scotland. The hierarchy of the church played a relatively small role and the initiative was left to lay leaders. Where nobles or local lairds offered protection it continued to thrive, as with Clanranald on South Uist, or in the north-east where the Earl of Huntly was the most important figure. In these areas Catholic sacraments and practices were maintained with relative openness. Members of the nobility were probably reluctant to pursue each other over matters of religion because of strong personal and social ties. An English report in 1600 suggested that a third of nobles and gentry were still Catholic in inclination. In most of Scotland, Catholicism became an underground faith in private households, connected by ties of kinship. This reliance on the household meant that women often became important as the upholders and transmitters of the faith, such as in the case of Lady Fernihurst in the Borders. They transformed their households into centres of religious activity and offered places of safety for priests.

Because the reformed kirk took over the existing structures and assets of the Church, any attempted recovery by the Catholic hierarchy was extremely difficult. After the collapse of Mary's cause in the civil wars in the 1570s, and any hope of a national restoration of the old faith, the hierarchy began to treat Scotland as a mission area. The leading order of the Counter-reformation, the newly founded Jesuits, initially took relatively little interest in Scotland as a target of missionary work. Their effectiveness was limited by rivalries between different orders at Rome. The initiative was taken by a small group of Scots connected with the Crichton family, who had supplied the bishops of Dunkeld. They joined the Jesuit order and returned to attempt conversions. Their focus was mainly on the court, which led them into involvement in a series of complex political plots and entanglements. The majority of surviving Scottish lay followers were largely ignored. Some were to convert to the Catholic Church, as did John Ogilvie (1569–1615), who went on to be ordained a priest in 1610, later being hanged for proselytism in Glasgow and often thought of as the only Scottish Catholic martyr of the Reformation era. Nevertheless, the Catholic Church's illegal status had a devastating impact on The Church's fortunes, although a significant congregation did continue to adhere, especially in the more remote Gaelic-speaking areas of the Highlands and Islands.

Decline from the 17th century

Numbers probably reduced in the seventeenth century and organisation deteriorated.

The Pope appointed Thomas Nicolson as the first Vicar Apostolic over the mission in 1694. The country was organised into districts and by 1703 there were thirty-three Catholic clergy. In 1733 it was divided into two vicariates, one for the Highland and one for the Lowland, each under a bishop. A Catholic seminary in Scalan in Glenlivet was the preliminary centre of education for Catholic priests in the area. It was illegal, and it was burned to the ground on several occasions by redcoat soldiers sent from beyond The Highlands. Beyond Scalan there were six attempts to found a seminary in the Highlands between 1732 and 1838, all suffering financially under Catholicism's illegal status. Clergy entered the country secretly and although services were illegal they were maintained.

The aftermath of the failed Jacobite risings in 1715 and 1745 further increased the persecution faced by Roman Catholics in Scotland.

According to Bishop John Geddes, "Early in the spring of 1746, some ships of war came to the coast of the isle of Barra and landed some men, who threatened they would lay desolate the whole island if the priest was not delivered up to them. Father James Grant, who was missionary then, and afterward Bishop, being informed of the threats in a safe retreat in which he was in a little island, surrendered himself, and was carried prisoner to Mingarry Castle on the Western coast (i.e. Ardnamurchan) where he was detained for some weeks."

After long and cruel imprisonment with other Roman Catholic priests at Inverness and in a prison hulk anchored in the River Thames, Grant was deported to the Netherlands and warned never to return to the British Isles. Like the other priests deported with him, Fr. Grant returned to Scotland almost immediately. His fellow prisoner, Father Alexander Cameron, the younger brother to the Chief of Clan Cameron, was less fortunate and died in the prison hulk due to the hardship of his imprisonment. During the 21st century, the Knights of St. Columba at the University of Glasgow launched a campaign to canonize Fr. Cameron, "with the hope that he will become a great saint for Scotland and that our nation will merit from his intercession." They erected a small petition book at their altar of St. Joseph in the University Catholic Chapel, Turnbull Hall. It is one of the necessary prerequisites for Canonisation in the Roman Catholic Church that there is a Cult of Devotion to the saint.

Exact numbers of communicants are uncertain, given the illegal status of Catholicism. In 1755 it was estimated that there were some 16,500 communicants, mainly in the north and west. In 1764, "the total Catholic population in Scotland would have been about 33,000 or 2.6% of the total population. Of these 23,000 were in the Highlands". Another estimate for 1764 is of 13,166 Catholics in the Highlands, perhaps a quarter of whom had emigrated by 1790, and another source estimates Catholics as perhaps 10% of the population.

Impact of the Clearances

While most of the landlords responsible for the Highland Clearances did not target people for ethnic or religious reasons, there is evidence of anti-Catholicism among some of them. In particular, large numbers of Catholics emigrated from the Western Highlands in the period 1770 to 1810 and there is evidence that anti Catholic sentiment (along with famine, poverty and rising rents) was a contributory factor in that period. In Glengarry County, Upper Canada, a colonial settlement was established for Scottish Catholic immigrants through the efforts of bishop Alexander Macdonnell. The settlement's inhabitants consisted of members of the Glengarry Fencibles, a disbanded Catholic unit of the Highland Fencible Corps, and their families.

Large-scale Catholic immigration
During the 19th century, Irish immigration substantially increased the number of Catholics in the country, especially in Glasgow and its vicinity, and the West of Scotland. Initially, clergymen from the recusant tradition of North-East Scotland played an important part in providing support. Later Italian, Polish, and Lithuanian immigrants reinforced the numbers.

The Catholic hierarchy was re-established in 1878 by Pope Leo XIII at the beginning of his pontificate. Six new dioceses were created: five of them
were organised into a single province with the Archbishop of St Andrews and Edinburgh as metropolitan; the Diocese of Glasgow remained separate and directly subject to the Apostolic See.

Sectarian tensions
Mass immigration to Scotland saw the emergence of sectarian tensions. Although the interwar Catholic community in Scotland was overwhelmingly working-class and endangered by poverty and economic crises, it was able to cope with the Great Depression. This relative immunity was caused by the Education (Scotland) Act 1918, which made Catholic schools fully state-funded. Michael John Rosie argues that in addition to state-funded education, it was the nature of Scottish Catholicism that "made it less vulnerable to economic dislocation":

This relative economic stability allowed the Catholic community to enter the political and social life of Scotland, sparking outrage among anti-Catholic and unionist circles, most notably the Orange Order. Sectarian violence in Scotland reached its peak in the early 1930s, and Catholic processions were frequently interrupted by anti-Catholic and Orange mob. The Orange Order frequently staged provocative marches in Catholic neighbourhoods. The violence and skirmishes steadily escalated and had a profound effect on Scotland as a whole; Rosie remarked that "the level and scale of the violence exhibited between 1931 and 1935 of a much more serious and concerted nature than of any period since the reintroduction of Orange parades in the 1870s". Sectarian violence was so severe that it caused high policing costs, and local councils were tempted to ban all "religious and pseudo-religious processions". While eventually no such ban took place, tight restrictions were introduced in order to minimise anti-Catholic violence.

In 1923, the Church of Scotland produced a (since repudiated) report, entitled The Menace of the Irish Race to our Scottish Nationality, accusing the largely immigrant Catholic population of subverting Presbyterian values and of spreading drunkenness, crime, and financial imprudence. Rev. John White, one of the senior leadership of the Church of Scotland at the time, called for a "racially pure" Scotland, declaring "Today there is a movement throughout the world towards the rejection of non-native constituents and the crystallization of national life from native elements."

Such officially hostile attitudes started to wane considerably from the 1930s and 1940s onwards, especially as the leadership of the Church of Scotland learned of what was happening in eugenics-conscious Nazi Germany and of the dangers of creating a "racially pure" national church; particularly as German people who were of even partially Slavic or Jewish ancestry were not considered "true" members of the Volk.

Social change and communal divisions
In 1986, the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland expressly repudiated the sections of the Westminster Confession directly attacking the Catholic Church. In 1990, both the Church of Scotland and the Catholic Church were founding members of the ecumenical bodies Churches Together in Britain and Ireland and Action of Churches Together in Scotland; relations between denominational leaders are now very cordial. Unlike the relationship between the hierarchies of the different churches, however, some communal tensions remain.

The association between football and displays of sectarian behaviour by some fans has been a source of embarrassment and concern to the management of certain clubs. The bitter rivalry between Celtic and Rangers in Glasgow, known as the Old Firm, is known worldwide for its sectarian dimension. Celtic was founded by Irish Catholic immigrants and Rangers has traditionally been supported by Unionists and Protestants. Sectarian tensions can still be very real, though perhaps diminished compared with past decades. Perhaps the greatest psychological breakthrough was when Rangers signed Mo Johnston (a Catholic) in 1989. Celtic, on the other hand, have never had a policy of not signing players due to their religion, and some of the club's greatest figures have been Protestants.

From the 1980s the UK government passed several acts that had provisions concerning sectarian violence. These included the Public Order Act 1986, which introduced offences relating to the incitement of racial hatred, and the Crime and Disorder Act 1998, which introduced offences of pursuing a racially aggravated course of conduct that amounts to harassment of a person. The 1998 Act also required courts to take into account where offences are racially motivated, when determining sentence. In the twenty-first century the Scottish Parliament legislated against sectarianism. This included provision for religiously aggravated offences in the Criminal Justice (Scotland) Act 2003. The Criminal Justice and Licensing (Scotland) Act 2010 strengthened statutory aggravations for both racially and religiously motivated hate crimes. The Offensive Behaviour at Football and Threatening Communications (Scotland) Act 2012, criminalised behaviour which is threatening, hateful, or otherwise offensive at a regulated football match including offensive singing or chanting. It also criminalised the communication of threats of serious violence and threats intended to incite religious hatred.

58% of the Catholic community belong to the manual working-class. Though structural disadvantage had largely eroded by the 1980s, Scottish Catholics are more likely to experience poverty and deprivation than their Protestant counterparts. Many more Catholics can now be found in what were called the professions, with some occupying posts in the judiciary or in national politics. In 1999, the Rt Hon John Reid MP became the first Catholic to hold the office of Secretary of State for Scotland. His succession by the Rt Hon Helen Liddell MP in 2001 attracted considerably more media comment that she was the first woman to hold the post than that she was the second Catholic. Also notable was the appointment of Louise Richardson to the University of St. Andrews as its principal and vice-chancellor. St Andrews is the third oldest university in the Anglosphere. Richardson, a Catholic, was born in Ireland and is a naturalised United States citizen. She is the first woman to hold that office and first Catholic to hold it since the Scottish Reformation.

The Catholic Church recognises the separate identities of Scotland and England and Wales. The church in Scotland is governed by its own hierarchy and bishops' conference, not under the control of English bishops. In more recent years, for example, there have been times when it was especially the Scottish bishops who took the floor in the United Kingdom to argue for Catholic social and moral teaching. The presidents of the bishops' conferences of England and Wales, Scotland, and Ireland meet formally to discuss "mutual concerns", though they are separate national entities. "Closer cooperation between the presidents can only help the Church's work", a spokesman noted.

Scottish Catholics strongly supported the Labour Party in the past, and Labour politicians openly courted Catholic voters and accused their opponents such as the Scottish National Party of opposing the existence of Catholic schools. Scottish Catholics increasingly started identifying with Scottish nationalism in the 1970s and 1980s, and switched to the SNP as their preferred party. Scottish Catholics also emerged as a staunchly pro-independence group – according to a 2020 poll, 70% of Scottish Catholics supported Scottish independence. In 2013, Scottish sociologist Michael Rosie noted that "Catholics were actually the religious sub-group most likely to support an independent Scotland in 1999. This remains true in 2012." Scottish Catholics are also more likely to be in favour of Scottish independence and to support SNP than non-religious voters.

Organisation

There are four entities that encompass Scotland, England, and Wales.

 The Bishopric of the Forces serves all members of the British Armed Forces throughout the world, including those stationed on bases in Scotland.
 The Personal Ordinariate of Our Lady of Walsingham is a jurisdiction equivalent to a diocese for former Anglicans received into the full communion of the Catholic Church and their families.  It has faculty to celebrate a distinct variant of the Roman Rite based on the Anglican Book of Common Prayer.
 The Ukrainian Catholic Eparchy of the Holy Family of London serves members of the Ukrainian Catholic Church, a sui juris ritual church of Byzantine Rite that is part of the larger Catholic Church.
 The Syro-Malabar Catholic Eparchy of Great Britain serves members of the Syro-Malabar Church.
There are two Catholic archdioceses and six dioceses in Scotland; total membership is 841,000:

The Bishopric of the Forces and the Personal Ordinariate of Our Lady of Walsingham are directly subject to the Holy See. The Ukrainian Catholic Eparchy of the Holy Family of London and the Syro-Malabar Catholic Eparchy of Great Britain was subject to their own metropolitans, major archbishops, and major archiepiscopal synods.

21st century

Between 1982 and 2010, the proportion of Scottish Catholics dropped 18%, baptisms dropped 39%, and Catholic church marriages dropped 63%. The number of priests also dropped. Between the 2001 UK Census and the 2011 UK Census, the proportion of Catholics remained steady while that of other Christians denominations, notably the Church of Scotland dropped.

In 2001, Catholics were a minority in each of Scotland's 32 council areas but in a few parts of the country their numbers were close to those of the official Church of Scotland. The most Catholic part of the country is composed of the western Central Belt council areas near Glasgow. In Inverclyde, 38.3% of persons responding to the 2001 UK Census reported themselves to be Catholic compared to 40.9% as adherents of the Church of Scotland. North Lanarkshire also already had a large Catholic minority at 36.8% compared to 40.0% in the Church of Scotland. Following in order were West Dunbartonshire (35.8%), Glasgow City (31.7%), Renfrewshire (24.6%), East Dunbartonshire (23.6%), South Lanarkshire (23.6%) and East Renfrewshire (21.7%).

In 2011, Catholics outnumbered adherents of the Church of Scotland in several council areas, including North Lanarkshire, Inverclyde, West Dunbartonshire, and the most populous one: Glasgow City.

Between the two censuses, numbers in Glasgow with no religion rose significantly while those noting their affiliation to the Church of Scotland dropped significantly so that the latter fell below those that identified with an affiliation to the Catholic Church.

At a smaller geographic scale, one finds that the two most Catholic parts of Scotland are: (1) the southernmost islands of the Western Isles, especially Barra and South Uist, populated by Gaelic-speaking Scots of long-standing; and (2) the eastern suburbs of Glasgow, especially around Coatbridge, populated mostly by the descendants of Irish Catholic immigrants.

According to the 2011 UK Census, Catholics comprise 16% of the overall population, making it the second-largest church after the Church of Scotland (32%).

Along ethnic or racial lines, Scottish Catholicism was in the past, and has remained at present, predominantly White or light-skinned in membership, as have always been other branches of Christianity in Scotland. Among respondents in the 2011 UK Census who identified as Catholic, 81% are White Scots, 17% are Other White (mostly other British or Irish), 1% is either Asian, Asian Scottish or Asian British, and an additional 1% is either mixed-race or from multiple ethnicities; African; Caribbean or black; or from other ethnic groups.

In recent years the Catholic Church in Scotland has experienced bad publicity due to statements made by bishops in defence of traditional Christian morality and in criticism of secular and liberal ideology. Joseph Devine, Bishop of Motherwell, came under fire after alleging that the "gay lobby" were mounting "a giant conspiracy" to completely destroy Christianity. Criticism was also levelled at perceived intransigence on joint faith schools and threats to withdraw acquiescence unless guarantees of separate staff rooms, toilets, gyms, visitor, and pupil entrances were not met.

In 2003, a Catholic church spokesman branded sex education as "pornography" and now disgraced Cardinal Keith O'Brien claimed plans to teach sex education in pre-schools amounted to "state-sponsored sexual abuse of minors."

There has also been even worse publicity related to the sexual abuse of minors. In 2016, a headteacher and teacher of the St Ninian's Orphanage, Falkland, Fife were sentenced for abuse at the orphanage from 1979 to 1983 when it was run by the Congregation of Christian Brothers. Fr John Farrell the last headteacher there was sentenced to five years imprisonment. Paul Kelly, a teacher, was sentenced to ten years. More than 100 charges involving 35 boys were made regarding the orphanage, which had been closed down in 1983. In 2019, it emerged that the Superior General of the Christian Brothers, approved the placement of Farrell at St Ninian's despite previous reports of interfering with boys at a South African boarding school where it was recommended by the African provincial that Farrell should never be placed in a boarding school in the future.

Roughly half of Catholic parishes in the West of Scotland were closed or merged because of a priest shortage and over half have closed in the Archdiocese of St Andrews and Edinburgh.

In early 2013, Scotland's most senior cleric, Cardinal Keith O'Brien, resigned after allegations of sexual misconduct were made against him and partially admitted. Subsequently, allegations were made that several other cases of alleged sexual misconduct took place involving other priests.

See also

 Carfin Grotto
 Catholic Church by country
 Catholic Church in England and Wales
 Catholic Church in Ireland (includes Northern Ireland)
 Catholic Church in the United Kingdom
 Catholic schools in the United Kingdom
 Catholicism in the Western Isles
 Hierarchy of the Catholic Church
 List of Catholic churches in Scotland
 List of monastic houses in Scotland
 Lists of popes, patriarchs, primates, archbishops, and bishops
 Scottish Catholic Observer
 The World, the Flesh, and Father Smith, a novel about the life of a Scottish Catholic priest

References

External links
Bishops' Conference of Scotland
Facts about Catholics in Scotland
Catholic Encyclopedia's article on Scotland
Scottish Catholic Observer
National Library of Scotland: SCOTTISH SCREEN ARCHIVE (selection of archive films relating to Catholicism in Scotland)

Scotland

Catholic Church in Scotland


Catherine "Cathy" LeFrançois (formerly Priest) is a professional female bodybuilder and figure competitor from Canada. She was ranked as the 10th best female bodybuilder in the  IFBB Pro Women's Bodybuilding Ranking List, as of 2013.

Early life and education
Cathy LeFrançois was born on February 12, 1971, in Amqui, Quebec. She was adopted at the age of 4 and has two sisters, Nancy and Annie, and one brother, Joy-Yan. Her mother was a nurse and her dad was a school cook. They were both  focused on working to build their retirement and provide for their children.

LeFrançois started figure skating at age six, but after two years she moved on to speed skating, alpine skiing, tennis, and badminton. She attended Notre-Dame-de-Foy in Quebec.

Bodybuilding career

Amateur
When LeFrançois was 14 years old she noticed that a classmate, Steve Beaulieu, had big veiny forearms. She asked him how he got them. He said he was training at home with some dumbbells. After noticing her interest he brought her a magazine with Cory Everson on the cover. She immediately told him that she wanted to be like her. Later on she saw a guy, Rick Voyer, with huge legs and calves. She asked him how he got them. He said it was from speed skating, so she started speed skating and competed for many years. Her friend, Steve, always gives her motivation. At her first speed skating competition she won three gold medals. While looking for Steve at school a friend told her that he had been killed by a drunk driver. From that moment on, her entire career has been dedicated to him.

She won five medals in the Quebec provincial championships, an accomplishment that has not been equaled since. She earned her pro card in 1995 when she won the overall title at the CBBF Canada Cup.

Professional

1995-2003
LeFrançois made her pro debut at the 1995 Jan Tana Classic. In 1996, she retired from bodybuilding due to the politics of the sport. She returned to the sport in 1999.  She competed exclusively as a lightweight once weight classes were introduced in pro shows in 2000.  Her best achievement as a professional was winning the lightweight class at the 2003 Ms. International.

After 2003, she retired from bodybuilding and transitioned to figure competition, competing in her first figure contests in 2005.

2006-present
In late 2006, she switched back to bodybuilding.  She won the New York Pro in 2008, 2009, and 2010.

Contest history
1990  regional amateur bodybuilding - 2nd
1991 CBBF Easter Canadian amateur bodybuilding championship - 1st (LW)
1993 CBBF Canadian amateur bodybuilding championship - 2nd (LW)
1994 CBBF Canadian amateur bodybuilding championship - 2nd (MW)
1995 CBBF Canada Cup III amateur bodybuilding championship - 1st (MW & overall)
1995 Jan Tana Classic - 12th
1996 Ms. International - 14th
1996 Jan Tana Classic - 8th
1999 Ms. International - 19th
1999 Jan Tana Classic - 8th
1999 IFBB Women's Extravaganza - 5th
2000 Ms. International - 3rd (LW)
2000 IFBB Ms. Olympia - 4th (LW)
2001 Ms. International - 4th (LW)
2002 Ms. International - 4th (LW)
2002 GNC Show of Strength - 2nd (LW)
2003 Ms. International - 1st (LW)
2003 IFBB Ms. Olympia - 4th (LW)
2006 IFBB Atlantic City Pro Women's Bodybuilding - 9th
2007 Ms. International - 10th
2007 Sacramento Pro - 2nd (LW)
2008 Ms. International - 6th
2008 New York Pro - 1st
2008 IFBB Olympia - 6th
2009 IFBB Ms. International - 8th
2009 IFBB New York Women's Pro - 1st
2010 IFBB New York Pro Bodybuilding & Bikini Championships - 1st
2010 NPC Nevada State Championships - NP
2010 IFBB Pro Bodybuilding Weekly Championships - 3rd
2010 IFBB Europa Battle of Champions - 3rd
2010 IFBB Olympia - 7th
2011 IFBB Ms. International - 6th
2011 IFBB FIBO Power Pro Germany - NP
2011 IFBB Toronto Pro Super Show - 4th
2011 IFBB Pro Bodybuilding Weekly Championships - 1st
2011 IFBB Olympia- 13th
2012 IFBB Ms. International - 4th
2012 IFBB Toronto Pro Supershow - 7th
2013 IFBB Ms. International - 5th
2013 IFBB Ms. Olympia - 10th
2016 IFBB Toronto Pro Supershow - 3rd

Figure career

Contest history
2005 IFBB Europa Supershow - DNP
2005 Sacramento Pro Figure - DNP
2006 IFBB California Pro Figure - 12th

Personal life
LeFrançois was  married to bodybuilder Lee Priest on July 1, 2000; they separated in 2005. She currently lives in El Monte, California. She is a French Canadian.

References

External links
Official website
Ironman Magazine Contest History

| colspan = 3 align = center | Ms. International
|-
| width = 30% align = center | Preceded by:Valentina Chepiga
| width = 40% align = center | First (2003)
| width = 30% align = center | Succeeded by:Dayana Cadeau

1971 births
Canadian expatriates in the United States
Canadian female bodybuilders
Fitness and figure competitors
French Quebecers
Living people
People from Amqui
Professional bodybuilders
People from El Monte, California
People from Lancaster, California
Sportspeople from California
Sportspeople from Los Angeles County, California
Sportspeople from Quebec

Catherine LeFrançois


The Mali me Gropa-Bizë-Martanesh Nature Park () is a  habitat or species management area (IUCN Category IV)  in central Albania adjacent with the border with Dajti National Park. It covers a surface area of .  It is situated in Dibër and Tirana County with three municipalities, Xibër, Martanesh and Shëngjergj, and several villages within its territory. The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) has listed the landscape as Category V. The region has been as well recognised as an Important Plant Area of international importance by Plantlife.

The landscape preserves a great variety of flora and fauna. Biogeographically, the landscape falls within the Dinaric alpine mixed forests terrestrial ecoregion of the Palearctic temperate broadleaf and mixed forests biome. Forests occupy 68% of the landscape's total area, with dense coniferous and deciduous forest.

The vertebrate fauna of the landscape consists of 209 species and is represented by 44 species of mammals, 130 species of birds, 23 species of reptile and as well as 12 species of amphibia. The brown bear, grey wolf and lynx inhabit the forested regions. The red fox, roe deer, wild boar, red squirrel, european otter, hazel dormouse, and mediterranean horseshoe bat are the primary predatory mammals. A total of 130 bird species have been observed in the landscape, including the golden eagle, sparrowhawk, goshawk, northern goshawk, egyptian vulture, common buzzard, honey buzzard, alpine swift, alpine chough and so on. There are also numerous species of reptiles and amphibians. Among the most common are the alpine newt, european ratsnake, european pond turtle, and hermann's tortoise.

Due to the combination of climate, specific topography with many mountain massifs, rock formations, soil types and hydrological conditions, as well as the lack of a strong anthropogenic influence, have contributed to the formation of different habitat. There are 450 species of vascular plants, which constitute 12% of the total number of species in Albania.
The vegetation of Mali me Gropa-Bizë-Martanesh is vertically divided into several distinct zones. Inside the Mediterranean zone, the coniferous zone is dominated by black pine, european beech, silver fir, austrian oak, hungarian oak, european smoketree. The deciduous zone is covered with european box, cade and jerusalem thorn. The Alpine zone is mainly composed with grass, moss, lichen and is as well abundant in bilberries and rare flowers. The most common species include spring gentian, rock rose, alpine aster, catsfoot, european blueberry and primrose.

The landscape includes five nature monuments such as the Caves of Xixelles, Valit, and Shutrese, Malit me Gropa, and a glacial valley and lake.

See also
 Protected areas of Albania
 Geography of Albania
 Krahina Malore Qëndrore

References

Nature parks in Albania
Protected areas of Dibër County
Protected areas of Tirana County
Forests of Albania


RNIE or the Route Nationale refers to the highway system in Benin. National highways include the RNIE 1, RNIE 2, RNIE 3 (which is located in the west of the country in a north-south direction), RNIE 4, RNIE 5, RNIE 6 and RNIE 7.

Benin's main north-south highway is the RNIE 2 which runs the entire 785 km from the Niger River to Cotonou. The RNIE 2 crosses the RNIE 4 at Bohicon east of Abomey.

References

External links
Explore Benin highways at Maplandia.com
RNIE 1 AND RNIE 2 at Cotonou at Maplandia.com

Transport in Benin

RNIE


An adverse food reaction is an adverse response by the body to food or a specific type of food.

The most common adverse reaction is a food allergy, which is an adverse immune response to either a specific type or a range of food proteins.

However, other adverse responses to food are not allergies.  These reactions include responses to food such as food intolerance, pharmacological reactions, and toxin-mediated reactions, as well as physical responses, such as choking.

References

Food science
Causes of death
Food sensitivity

Adverse food reaction


Von der Tann was a steam-powered 120 ton gunboat built in 1849 at Conradi shipyards in Kiel for the small joint navy of the two duchies of Schleswig and Holstein. She was the first propeller-driven gunboat in the world.

History
During the First War of Schleswig, 1848–1850 between Denmark and the two duchies, the Schleswig-Holstein navy comprised three paddlewheelers with sail rigging, a schooner and 12 gunboats; their task was to protect the coast against Danish raids.

Initially called Gunboat No. 1, Von der Tann was the most modern of these ships. Her steam engine, built by August Howaldt at Schweffel und Howaldt's works in Kiel, gave her  and a top speed (under steam) of six knots. She carried the rigging of a three-mast schooner, with a very tall funnel behind the main mast. Her armament comprised two 64-pounder guns mounted on swivels fore and aft plus four three-pounder howitzers.

During the night of 20/21 July 1850, Von der Tann had captured a Danish freighter in the bay of Lübeck, but was not permitted to enter the neutral port of Travemünde which belonged to the Free Hanseatic City of Lübeck. When Von der Tann attempted to enter the port of Neustadt in Holstein, she was engaged by Danish naval forces, the ships Heckla and Valkyren. During the ensuing battle, Von der Tann accidentally ran aground just outside Neustadt harbor. The ship was abandoned and set on fire by her crew, but was later repaired and put back into service. In 1853, after the end of the First War of Schleswig, Von der Tann was taken over by the Danish navy and renamed Støren. She was decommissioned and scrapped in 1862. The engine was reused in the gunboat Hauch.

Legacy
A model and some pieces of wreckage are on display at the Ostholstein-Museum in Neustadt.

A later ship of the same name was the Imperial German battlecruiser . Both were named after the Bavarian general Ludwig Freiherr von und zu der Tann-Rathsamhausen who, as a young officer, had organized and commanded the militia of Schleswig.

References
Notes

Bibliography

External links
 Dampfkanonenboot "von der Tann"
 Die schleswig-holsteinische Flottille
 Die schleswig-holsteinische Erhebung gegen Dänemark

19th-century naval ships
Ships of the Schleswig-Holstein Navy
Gunboats of the Royal Danish Navy
Ships built in Kiel
1849 ships
Maritime incidents in July 1850
Bay of Lübeck

Von der Tann (gunboat)