Latin America bank chief pitches rare earth mining to Pope Leo XIV

The head of Latin America’s top development bank pressed Pope Leo XIV on rare earth mining in a private Vatican meeting, arguing the region can capture more value from the clean-energy boom if extraction comes with strong safeguards. The pitch landed against a very different message from the Holy See, which has been pushing Catholic institutions to divest from mining because of its toll on poor and Indigenous communities.

Ilan Goldfajn, president of the Inter-American Development Bank, met the pope in Rome on Friday, June 19, 2026, and said rare earth extraction could benefit Latin America if governments and companies enforce labor standards, environmental protections and local value-added processing. The bank says it has a roughly $4 billion pipeline of critical mineral projects across the region, concentrated in Chile, Argentina and Brazil, and about three-quarters of that work involves private companies.

The exchange underscored a sharp institutional tension. On March 20, 2026, the Vatican launched a campaign encouraging divestment from mining industries, linking church investment to ecological teaching and warning that extractive projects have generated social tensions and serious environmental consequences. Church and Indigenous groups across Latin America and the Caribbean helped launch the broader effort, while the Church and Mining Network operates across 12 countries in the region.

The stakes are rising well beyond the Vatican walls. Demand for critical minerals is expected to triple by 2030 and quadruple by 2040, according to the International Energy Agency, driven by renewable energy technologies and increasingly by artificial intelligence. That puts Latin America in the middle of a global scramble for supply chains, and raises the central question hanging over Goldfajn’s outreach: whether the region can expand rare earth mining without repeating the contamination, water stress and land conflicts that have shadowed earlier resource booms.

Pope Leo’s response matters because he carries unusual authority in Latin America. He is the first U.S.-born pope, and his pastoral work in Peru gave him direct exposure to mining-affected areas, including time in Lima and Chiclayo. His approach also suggests the Vatican is not closing the door to industry entirely: in January 2026, Leo hosted mining and energy executives under the Building Bridges Initiative, signaling a willingness to engage even as the Church keeps pressure on extractive companies.