Criticism of Hubertus Mass in Riehen

Killing with ecclesiastical blessing: On November 3rd at 5:00 PM, a Hubertus Mass will take place with the Hunting Horn Players Reichenstein and Hunting Horn Players Ergolz at St. Franziskus Church, Riehen. IG Wild beim Wild sharply criticizes the event and those responsible.

On Hubertus Day, the commemoration 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 the Christian ethic of respect for life.

They frequently mark the beginning of the particularly cruel driven hunts and special hunts in which even senile hobby hunters roam through the forests engaging in animal cruelty, 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 control 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 entrails, the animals flee, often suffer from their injuries for days and die agonizingly 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 of female animals occurs earlier, which increases the birth rate. Accordingly, high hunting pressure causes the population of the relevant wild animals to increase in that area.

Celebrating a church service that gives hunters symbolic blessing for the systematic killing of defenseless fellow creatures sends a completely wrong signal. Churches must advocate for the preservation of creation, not for its destruction. The Hubertus Mass also fails to recognize that Saint Hubertus changed from being a hunter to a convinced opponent of hunting. Julia Bielecki, Theologian.

The legend of Saint Hubertus and the stag bearing a cross 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 one day during a hunt he had tracked down a stag and was pursuing it to kill it, the animal 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 his hunting and henceforth led a simple life.

So much for the legend. After his experience 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 faced with a choice: either he kills the animal – then he also kills Christ – or he does not do this and confesses to Christ. Or to put it in the words of Matthew 25:40: "Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me."

It is written nowhere that Jesus Christ, whom both denominations venerate 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 involves 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. They should not be hunters, but protectors and friends 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 mercy, respect for life, and love of neighbor. Practicing Christians engage with the question of how these fundamental values can be implemented globally and formulate – biblically grounded and theologically founded – liveable ethical guidelines for peaceful coexistence between humans, nature, and animals. The animals are "our brothers and sisters", our neighbors. Every use of them – whether for food production, clothing, entertainment, or in animal experiments – and every degradation to commodity contradicts a peaceful, preserving, and life-respecting attitude.

Hobby hunters live off flesh. Therefore they are often angry, violent, and aggressive. This is not strange, but quite natural. When one lives from killing, one has no respect for life. One is hostile toward life. And whoever is hostile to life cannot engage in prayer, for prayer means reverence for life. And whoever is hostile toward God's creatures cannot be very friendly toward God either.