A leading Peruvian business figure, Roque Benavides, CEO of BuenaVentura, the nation’s largest publicly traded precious metals company, has read the encyclical. In his Lima high-rise, he told this reporter dismissively: “It’s not going to change the world; nothing changes the world.”
Yet, parts of the document appear written with Cocachacra and Tia Maria in mind, like section 51: “The export of raw materials to satisfy markets in the industrialized north has caused harm locally, as for example, in mercury pollution in gold mining and sulphur dioxide pollution in copper mining.”
In Cocachacra’s municipal building, a wooden crucifix with a silver Christ is perched on the corner of Mayor Helar Valencia’s desk. Three posters of the Virgin Mary grace his walls. “I’m Catholic,” he says, “but my way.” Which means he has given up on the Church, but not faith. And he also believes in miracles.
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