Criticism of Hubertus Mass Hergiswald Pilgrimage Church

Killing with ecclesiastical blessing: On November 9th at 10:00 AM, a Hubertus Mass with the «Naturhorn Blowers Auerhahn Luzern» will take place in the Catholic pilgrimage church Hergiswald. IG Wild beim Wild sharply criticizes the event and those responsible.

On Hubertus Day, the commemorative day of Saint Hubertus of Liège on November 3rd, IG Wild beim Wild criticizes such orientations of the church service.

Hubertus Masses, which are primarily co-organized and attended by hobby hunters, are incompatible with Christian ethics of respect for life.

They often form the prelude to the particularly cruel driven hunts and special hunts where even senile hobby hunters move through the forests in an animal-torturing manner, 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, do even more need to 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 Welfare, up to two-thirds of wild animals do not die immediately during driven hunts. With shattered bones and protruding intestines, 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 respective wild animals in the area to increase.

Celebrating a religious service that gives hunters symbolic blessing for the systematic killing of defenseless fellow creatures sends a completely wrong message. Churches must advocate for the preservation of creation, not for its destruction. The Hubertus Mass also misunderstands 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 traditional 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 the hunt and was pursuing it to kill it, the stag suddenly turned to face him. A cross shone between its antlers 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 goes the legend. After his experience with the stag, Hubertus thus 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 professes himself to Christ. Or to put it 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 worship as the Son of God, ever hunted animals. That would also be very contradictory, for God's 5th Commandment states "Thou shalt not kill«. But every hunt is connected with killing.

Despite all this, the so-called Hubertus hunts as well as Hubertus Masses take place in churches annually. 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. He should not be the hunter, but the protector and friend of animals. As it says so beautifully in Mark 16:15: "Go out into the whole world and proclaim the gospel to all creatures.« This certainly does not mean hunting.

True Christianity is a religion of ethics that advocates for mercy, respect for life, and love of neighbor. Practicing Christians deal with the question of how these fundamental values can be implemented globally and formulate – biblically grounded and theologically founded – livable ethical guidelines for peaceful coexistence of humans, nature, and animals. The animals are "our brothers and sisters«, our neighbors. Every use of them – whether for food production, for clothing, for entertainment, or in animal experiments – and every 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 quite natural. When you live from killing, you have no respect for life. You are hostile towards life. And whoever is hostile to life cannot go to prayer, because prayer means reverence for life. And whoever is hostile towards God's creatures cannot be very friendly towards God either.