Priest’s Deer Hunting Protested

Fourteen Catholic priests from Michigan who enjoy hunting deer have been targeted by a national animal-rights group that hopes the Catholic church will condemn the sport someday.

The priests have joked publicly about the good times they have en- joyed in their rustic hunting lodge, called the St. Hubert Hunt Camp in honor of the church’s patron saint of hunters.

“Oh, of course, we pray for deer. Not only deer, but big deer,” one of the priests said in a story about the camp that appeared in a number of U.S. newspapers late last year.

The priests described their camp - a combination spiritual retreat, fraternal support group - and a darned good spot for nailing deer. During the last 30 years, the priests have had a 64-percent success rate at bagging bucks, the story said.

The Fund for Animals opposes all killing of animals. So, a handful of the group’s 200,000 members clipped copies of the story and sent them to their national headquarters in New York. In January, Norm Phelps, the group’s program coordinator, sent a letter to the priests and to the Vati- can, arguing that hunting for sport was cruel. Neither the priests nor the Vatican responded. Now, the group is going public with its protest as the hunting season approaches.

“Deer season soon will be starting again in Michigan,” Phelps said Tuesday. “With the possibility that these priests will be going into the woods again to kill deer, we felt we had to take some further steps.”

So far, those steps are limited to contacting news media around the country. But Phelps said he hopes to spark a debate with Catholic leaders about the morality of hunting.

The hunting priests want no part of it. On Tuesday, the Rev. Jack Johnson -a co-owner of the camp - and the pastor of Blessed Sacrament Catholic Church in Midland declined to discuss the matter. “I’m not going to get into defending hunting with animal-rights groups because it’s a no-win situation,” he said.

The priests are on fairly solid ground. The Catholic church does not forbid hunting or fishing, since the practices feed millions of families worldwide.

However, the Fund for Animals has discovered some passages in the church’s 1992 catechism that might cause hunters to pause. The catechism, an official summary of Catholic teachings, says, “It is contrary to human dignity to cause animals to suffer or die needlessly.” It also says, “Animals are God’s creatures. … Thus, men owe them kindness.”

However, if Phelps hopes to win the debate, he’ll have trouble getting around the fifth chapter of the gospel of Luke in which Jesus helps his disciples haul in such a whopping load of fish that they nearly sink two boats.