Criticism of Hubertus Mass in Flums 2024

Killing with ecclesiastical blessing: On November 3rd, at 09:00, a Hubertus Mass with the Jagdhorn Brass Allegro / Sarganserländer Jagdvereinigung will take place in the St. Justus Church in Flums. IG Wild beim Wild sharply criticizes the event and those responsible.

On Hubertus Day, the memorial day of Saint Hubertus of Liège on November 3rd, IG Wild beim Wild criticizes such orientations of worship services.

Hubertus Masses, which are primarily organized 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 special hunts where even senile hobby hunters roam 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, must even more be shot so that there are 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 organs, the animals flee, often suffering from their injuries for days and dying agonizing deaths if they are not found during the so-called follow-up search.

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 in female animals occurs earlier, which increases the birth rate. Accordingly, high hunting pressure causes the population of the respective wild animals in that area to increase.

Celebrating a religious 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 being 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 the year 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. 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 ended his hunting and thereafter led a simple life.

So goes 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 confronted with a choice: either he kills the animal – then he also kills Christ – or he does not do this and professes his faith in Christ. Or to put it in the words from Matthew 25:40: »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 worship as the Son of God, ever hunted animals. That would also be very contradictory, for God's 5th Commandment states "You shall 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 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 for one's neighbor. Practicing Christians concern themselves with the question of how these fundamental values can be implemented globally and formulate – in accordance with the Bible and theologically sound – 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, clothing, 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 one lives by killing, one has no respect for life. One is hostile towards life. And those who are hostile to life cannot enter into prayer, because prayer means reverence for life. And those who are hostile towards God's creatures cannot be very friendly towards God either.