The article seeks to characterize the catholic development thinking in Brazil in the decades of 1950 and 1960 starting from the attendance of the thinking and of the action of the French-Dominican priest Louis-Joseph Lebret. Founder of the Economics and Humanism movement in France, the cleric participated as an expert in development, in the clericalist debate in the Vatican Concilium II, as well as he was the representative of the Holy See in many instancies of the UN. Lebret had been many times in Brazil, created teams of planners, advised governments and social actions. The priest was responsible for the coordination of