Criticism of Hubertus Mass in Wildhaus

Killing with ecclesiastical blessing: On October 27, a Hubertus Mass with the Toggenburg hunting horn players takes place at 10:30 am in the Catholic Church in Wildhaus. IG Wild beim Wild sharply criticizes the event and those responsible.

On Hubertus Day, the commemoration day of Saint Hubertus of Liège on November 3, 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 often form the prelude to particularly cruel drive hunts and special hunts where even senile hobby hunters move through the forests in 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 drive 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 wildlife 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 wildlife species to increase in that area.

Celebrating a religious 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 transformed from a hunter into a convinced opponent of hunting. Julia Bielecki, Theologian.

The legend of 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 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 pursued 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 goes the legend. After his experience with the stag, Hubertus thus ceased 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 professes his faith in 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 contradictory, for God's 5th Commandment states »Thou shalt not kill«. Every hunt, however, 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 the hunter, but the protector and friend of animals. As it says so beautifully in Mark 16:15: »Go into all the world and proclaim 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 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. 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 from 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 enter into prayer, for prayer means reverence for life. And whoever is hostile toward God's creatures cannot be very friendly toward God either.