Killing, tormenting and mutilating with ecclesiastical blessing
All hobby hunters should take Saint Hubertus as their role model and stop hunting.
On the Feast of Saint Hubertus of Liège on 3 November, IG Wild beim Wild criticises church services of this nature.
Hubertus Masses, which are largely organised and attended by hobby hunters, are incompatible with the Christian ethic of respect for life.
They frequently mark the beginning of particularly cruel driven hunts and battue hunts, as well as special hunts such as those in the canton of Grisons, during which hobby hunters roam the forests, chasing and killing countless animals. IG Wild beim Wild therefore appeals to church representatives to distance themselves in future from these violence-glorifying and sectarian masses.
There is no comprehensible justification for hunting, as it is not suited to regulating wildlife populations on a lasting basis. Hunting does not mean fewer wild animals — it means more births.
If ever more animals of a species are shot because there are ever more of them, must even more then be shot in order for numbers to decrease?
Historically speaking, hunting for population control is not hunting at all — it is terrorist zooicide.
According to the Veterinary Association for Animal Welfare, up to two thirds of wild animals shot during driven hunts do not die immediately. With shattered bones and entrails hanging out, the animals flee, suffer from their injuries for days on end, and die in agony if they are not found during the so-called tracking search.
Numerous scientific studies confirm that hunting is not suitable for permanently regulating wildlife populations. Scientists demonstrated that in hunted wild boar populations, female animals reach sexual maturity earlier, which causes birth rates to rise. Accordingly, high hunting pressure leads to an increase in the population of the wildlife species concerned in the given area. Renowned biologist Prof. Dr. Josef Reichholf also sees no necessity for hunting from a wildlife biology perspective: the near-extinct wolves do not need to be replaced by human hunters, as natural regulation of animal populations living in forests occurs through environmental factors such as weather conditions, food availability, and disease.
Holding a church service that gives hunters the symbolic blessing for the systematic killing of defenseless fellow creatures sends entirely the wrong message. Churches must stand for the preservation of creation, not its destruction, says Julia Bielecki, theologian. The Hubertus Mass also fails to recognize that Saint Hubertus himself went from being a hunter to a committed opponent of hunting.
The legend of Hubertus and the stag bearing a cross is well known from literature and the visual arts.
According to the traditional legend, Hubertus was born around 655 as the son of a nobleman and died in the year 728. Initially he led a pleasure-seeking life and was a passionate hunter. One day, while out hunting, he had tracked down a stag and was pursuing it to kill it, when the animal suddenly turned to face him. Between its antlers a cross shone forth, and in the form of the stag, Christ spoke to him: «Hubertus, why do you hunt me?» Hubertus dismounted from his horse and knelt before the stag. From that moment on, Hubertus ceased hunting and henceforth led a simple life.
So much for the legend. After his encounter with the stag, Hubertus thus stopped hunting and became a devout Christian. For true Christianity and hunting simply do not go together. In his encounter with the stag, he was confronted with a choice: either he kills the animal — in which case he also kills Christ — or he does not, and professes his faith in Christ. Or, in the words of Matthew 25:40:
Whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me.
Nowhere is it written that Jesus Christ, whom both denominations venerate as the Son of God, ever hunted animals. This would also be highly contradictory, as God's 5th commandment states “Thou shalt not kill.” Yet every hunt is inherently linked to killing.
Despite all of this, so-called Hubertus hunts and Hubertus masses in churches take place annually around November 3rd, the feast day of Saint Hubertus. Rather than appointing Saint Hubertus as the patron saint of animals, the Church named him the patron of wildlife killers.
Surely the meaning of the Hubertus legend is that humans should live in harmony and peace with nature and animals. One should not be the hunter, but the protector and friend of animals. As it is so beautifully stated in Mark 16:15: “Go into all the world and proclaim the gospel to every creature.” This certainly does not refer to hunting.
True Christianity is a religion of ethics that stands for compassion, respect for life, and love of one's neighbour. Practising Christians engage with the question of how these core values can be implemented globally, and formulate — grounded in scripture and theologically founded — viable ethical guidelines for a peaceful coexistence of humans, nature, and animals. Animals are “our brothers and sisters,” our neighbours. Any use of them — whether for food production, clothing, entertainment, or in animal testing — and any reduction of them to mere commodities, contradicts a peaceful, preserving, and life-respecting attitude.
