Criticism of Hubertus Mass in Zurich St. Peter 2024

Killing with ecclesiastical blessing: On November 17th at 10:00 a.m., Jagd Zürich is a guest again – Jules Cantin's Hubertus Mass sets the hunting horn tone in this service that makes hunters' hearts beat faster. Following this, the certification of the hobby killers takes place at St. Peter Church Zurich. The IG Wild beim Wild sharply criticizes the event and those responsible.

On St. Hubertus Day, the commemoration day of Saint Hubertus of Liège on November 3rd, the IG Wild beim Wild criticizes such orientations of the worship 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 particularly cruel drive hunts and special hunts where even senile hobby hunters engage in animal cruelty through the forests, chasing, injuring and killing countless wild animals. The 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 regulation is not hunting either, 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 suffering from their injuries for days and dying agonizing deaths if they are not found during the so-called tracking.

Numerous scientific studies prove that hunting is not suitable for permanently regulating wildlife populations. Scientists have demonstrated that in hunted wild boar populations, sexual maturity occurs earlier in female animals, which causes the birth rate to increase. Accordingly, high hunting pressure causes the population of the respective 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 hunter to 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 while hunting and was pursuing it to kill it, the stag suddenly faced 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 much for the legend. After his experience with the stag, Hubertus stopped hunting and became a serious Christian. Because true Christianity and hunting simply do not go together. In his encounter with the stag, he was presented 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 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, because 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 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 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 – livable ethical guidelines for peaceful coexistence of humans, nature and animals. The animals are "our brothers and sisters", our neighbors. Any use of them – whether for food production, for clothing, for entertainment or in animal experiments – and any degradation to commodity, contradicts a peaceful, preserving and life-respecting attitude.

Hobby hunters live off flesh. That's why 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 go into prayer, for prayer means reverence for life. And whoever is hostile toward God's creatures cannot be very friendly toward God either.