This paper deals with the convergence and the dispute between sectors of the Catholic Church and the Third Sector for the security of land tenure and urbanization of slums agenda in Brazil in the 1980s. It analyzes the case of Voluntary Association for International Service (AVSI), a Italian NGO that arrives in Brazil in 1981, as an organization linked to the religious movement Comunione e Liberazione and becomes, in the early 1990s, due to its works in Belo Horizonte, an international recognized NGO as an expert in structural interventions in informal settlements. It’s considered here the hypothesis that the arrival of AVSI in Brazil coincides with a moment of transition, in which the urban issue, from the perspective of those excluded from state actions and policies, ceases to be territory of the Catholic Church and becomes progressively a field for the insertion of NGOs and international financing. This organization is approached from a cross-scaling perspective and under two major opposing views - Catholic resistance to the process of secularization and the expansion of international financial revenue.
