Vatican launches campaign encouraging Catholics to divest from the mining sector

ABColombia welcomed the news from Rome that the Vatican has launched a campaign encouraging Catholic organisations, bishops’ conferences, and religious communities to divest from the mining sector for the sake of human ecology.

On 20 March 2026, the Vatican launched an international project encouraging disinvestment from the mining sector. This is an initiative rooted and grounded in the environmental and social teachings of the encyclical Laudato Si and is backed ‌by senior Church leaders and about 40 other faith-based institutions, would push companies to treat their workers justly and protect the local environment near their operations, or risk loss of investments.

Catholic Church leaders warn that a global rush for minerals enriches wealthy countries while leaving environmental damage and poverty in the Global South.

“We are living in a time when humanity faces a decisive question: What kind of world do we want to leave to the generations that come after us? This question is not abstract. It has the face of concrete communities — Indigenous peoples who see their territories threatened, families who lose their sources of water, mountains opened like wounds and rivers turned into silent witnesses of contamination” Cardinal Fabio Baggio, undersecretary of the Vatican Department for Integral Human Development.

The Vatican’s campaign and divestment platform is in conjunction with the the Church and Mining Network, a group that engages 12 countries in Latin America and the Caribbean to promote rights of local and Indigenous communities and build consensus around divestment from mining and related activities. Institutions that join the platform can share and compare practices for divestment and ethical investment policies.

The International Energy Agency expects the demand for critical minerals will triple by 2030 and quadruple by 2040.

Faith-based investments are growing according to reports, therefore it is encouraging to see the Vatican gather investors to discuss how to invest ethically a portfolio which has investments estimated $1.75 trillion. These discussions will take place in summits in London and the Vatican.

Read ABColombia’s report: Giving it away: the consequences of an unsustainable mining policy in Colombia

In Spanish: Alimentando el Conflicto en Colombia: El Impacto de la Minería de Oro en Chocó