Criticism of Hubertusmesse Hergiswald 2024

Killing with ecclesiastical blessing: On November 3rd, a Hubertus Mass will take place at 10:00 AM with the Auerhahn hunting horn players in the pilgrimage church Hergiswald. The IG Wild beim Wild sharply criticizes the event and those responsible.

On Hubertus Day, the feast day of Saint Hubertus of Liège on November 3rd, the IG Wild beim Wild criticizes such orientations of religious 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 mark the beginning of particularly cruel drive hunts and special hunts where even senile hobby hunters torturously roam through the forests and chase, injure and kill 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, do even more need to be shot so 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 not hunting either, but terroristic 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 affected 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 advocate for the preservation of creation, not for its destruction. The Hubertus Mass also misunderstands that Saint Hubertus changed from being a hunter to becoming 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 handed-down 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 one day while hunting he had tracked down a stag and was pursuing it to kill it, the stag suddenly turned to face him. Between its antlers a cross shone 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 devout Christian. For 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 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.

Nevertheless, 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 mercy, respect for life and love of one's 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, for clothing, for entertainment or in animal experiments – and every degradation to commodity, contradicts a peaceful, preserving and life-respecting attitude.

Hobby hunters live on meat. Therefore they are often angry, violent and aggressive. This is not strange, but completely natural. When one lives by 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.