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Pope Leo XIV will meet key executives in the mining and energy sector at the Vatican on Saturday, including the heads of BHP and Vale, for a discussion about ethical approaches to the resource sector.
The private audience with the Pontiff, scheduled for 11am, will bring together more than a dozen titans of industry such as Mike Henry, chief executive of BHP, Gustavo Pimenta, chief executive of Vale and Ivanhoe executive chair Robert Friedland.
With an estimated 1.4bn followers globally, the Catholic Church often has a presence in the remote communities impacted by resources projects, amid mounting competition to extract metals such as copper, gold and silver.
The meeting will be an early indication of how Pope Leo, the first US born leader of the Catholic Church, plans to approach the industry.
Leo’s Argentine predecessor, Pope Francis, at times took a combative line with the extractives industry. In 2018 he told the heads of BP and ExxonMobil that they should stop exploring for new fossil fuels, and that “energy use must not destroy civilisation”.
Pope Leo is expected to be less confrontational in tone. Analysts say the Pontiff shares his predecessor’s concerns about the impact of extractive industries on the world’s most vulnerable people, particularly as a result of his years spent in Peru, but is likely to take a more pragmatic approach.
“For the church, the basic message is always the protection of human dignity and the human good,” said Severine Deneulin, co-author of last year’s Vatican report, Catholic Approaches to Mining, and an associate fellow at Oxford university’s Institute for Overseas Development.
The impact of the extractive industries on nearby communities is particularly salient for Catholic clerics in Latin America, where Leo, then known as Robert Prevost, spent nearly 20 years until 2023, when Francis summoned him to Rome. He remained closely involved with the Latin American Catholic Church as president of the Pontifical Commission for Latin America — the group that organised Saturday’s meeting.
The mining industry has been working with faith groups including the Catholic Church for more than a decade to try to improve relations.
“Part of the dialogue is to help the industry recognise our obligations, through the lens of the church. It can make us better at being more responsible,” said Rohitesh Dhawan, head of the International Council on Mining and Metals, which represents major mining companies. “And part of it is to better the understanding of faith leaders, of what mining is and isn’t.”
Saturday’s meeting is not expected to include any public remarks. BHP, Vale, Ivanhoe Mines and the Vatican all declined to comment.
In previous speeches Leo has acknowledged that the development of new technologies depends on mining and minerals, but expressed dismay at the conditions under which they are often extracted.
“Without coltan from the Democratic Republic of Congo, for example, many of the technological devices we use today would not exist. Still, its extraction depends on paramilitary violence, child labour and the displacement of populations,” he said in October.
“The dynamisms of progress should always be managed through an ethic of responsibility,” he added in the same speech.
