Mountains of Faith? Church takes on large-scale mining

The anti-mining stance by the Catholic Church in Argentina was first prompted in 2005 by Fernando Maletti, then-bishop of Bariloche Diocese in Patagonia. His statement critiqued the use of cyanide in mining. The Calcatreu gold-silver development was rejected by the provincial government later that year, and the use of cyanide for mineral processing was banned by a provincial law. The ban was overturned in 2012, triggering massive protests. Nonetheless, not a single project has moved forward in Rio Negro since then.
Following Maletti's anti-mining statements, then-bishop of Chubut Virginio Bressanelli stated in 2009: “We are uncomfortable that anyone can think, or believe, that this kind of business will be the salvation of the rural people.” Bressanelli was referring particularly to the massive Navidad silver-lead project in the meseta area of Chubut, located some 140 km (87 miles) south of Calcatreu. Open-pit mining has been banned in the province since 2003, after the town of Esquel rejected Canadian company Meridian Gold's project in a local referendum.
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