Criticism of Hubertus Mass in Walchwil
Killing with ecclesiastical blessing: On October 26, a Hubertus Mass takes place at 10:00 AM in Walchwil with the Zug hunting horn players. IG Wild beim Wild sharply criticizes the event and those responsible.
On Hubertus Day, the feast day of Saint Hubertus of Liège on November 3, IG Wild beim Wild criticizes such orientations of church services.
Hubertus masses, which are primarily organized and attended by hobby hunters, are incompatible with the Christian ethic of respect for life.
They often mark the beginning of particularly cruel driven hunts and special hunts where even senile hobby hunters torment their way through forests, chasing, injuring and killing countless wild animals. IG Wild beim Wild therefore appeals to church representatives to distance themselves in future from the violence-glorifying and sectarian masses.
If more and more wild animals of a species are shot because there are more and more of them, must even more be shot so that there will be fewer?
There is no comprehensible reason for recreational hunting, as it is not suitable for permanently regulating populations. Hunting does not mean fewer wild animals, but more births.
Historically speaking, hunting for population regulation is also not hunting, but terrorist zoocide.
According to the Veterinary Association for Animal Protection, up to two-thirds of wild animals do not die immediately during driven hunts. With shattered bones and protruding organs, the animals flee, often suffering from their injuries for days and dying in agony if they are not found during the so-called tracking.
Numerous scientific studies prove that hunting is not suitable for permanently regulating wild populations. Scientists have demonstrated that in hunted wild boar populations, sexual maturity occurs earlier in female animals, which increases the birth rate. Accordingly, high hunting pressure causes the population of the affected wild animals in that area to increase.
Celebrating a worship service that gives hunters symbolic blessing for the systematic killing of defenseless fellow creatures sends a completely wrong signal. Churches must stand for the preservation of creation, not for its destruction. The Hubertus Mass also fails to recognize that Saint Hubertus changed from a hunter to a convinced opponent of hunting. Julia Bielecki, theologian.
The legend of Hubertus and the cross-bearing stag is known from literature and visual arts.
According to the transmitted legend, Hubertus was born around 655 as the son of a nobleman and died in 728. Initially, he led a pleasure-seeking life and was a passionate hunter. When he had one day tracked a stag during a hunt and was pursuing it to kill it, the stag suddenly turned to face him. Between its antlers shone a cross 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 ended hunting and henceforth led a simple life.
So much for the legend. After his experience with the stag, Hubertus stopped hunting and became a serious Christian. For true Christianity and hunting simply do not go together. In his encounter with the stag, he was faced with the choice: either he kills the animal – then he also kills Christ – or he does not do this and confesses to Christ. Or spoken in the words from Matthew 25:40: »What you have done to one of the least of my brothers, you have done to me«.
It is written nowhere that Jesus Christ, whom both denominations revere as the Son of God, ever hunted animals. That would also be very absurd, for God's 5th commandment states »Thou shalt not kill«. But every hunt involves killing.
Despite all this, the so-called Hubertus hunts and Hubertus Masses take place in churches every year. Instead of making Saint Hubertus the patron saint of animals, the Church appointed him as the patron of wildlife killers.
The meaning of the Hubertus legend is surely this: that humans should live in harmony and peace with nature and animals. They should not be the hunter, but the protector and friend of animals. As it says so beautifully in Mark 16:15: »Go into all the world and preach the gospel to all creatures.« This certainly does not mean hunting.
True Christianity is a religion of ethics that advocates for compassion, respect for life, and love of one's neighbor. Practicing Christians engage with the question of how these fundamental values can be implemented globally and formulate – biblically based and theologically sound – livable ethical guidelines for peaceful coexistence between humans, nature, and animals. The animals are "our brothers and sisters", our neighbors. Any use of them – whether for food production, clothing, entertainment, or in animal experiments – and any degradation to commodity, contradicts a peaceful, preserving, and life-respecting attitude.
Hobby hunters live off meat. That's why they are often angry, violent and aggressive. This is not strange, but completely natural. When you live by killing, you have no respect for life. You are hostile toward life. And whoever is anti-life cannot enter into prayer, because prayer means reverence for life. And whoever is hostile toward God's creatures cannot be very friendly toward God either.
