Angelo Scola

At the university Scola met Luigi Giussani, the founder of the Catholic movement Communion and Liberation. After earning his degree in philosophy and teaching in high schools, Scola entered the Archiepiscopal seminary of Milan, studying one year in Saronno and the others in Venegono. In 1969 Scola was denied permission to be ordained subdeacon a year early. Following the advice of Luigi Giussani, in summer 1969 Scola moved to the seminary of the Diocese of Teramo-Atri where he studied one year. On 18 July 1970 Scola was ordained to the priesthood in Teramo by Bishop Abele Conigli.

Scola was born in Malgrate, Milan, to Carlo Scola, a truck driver, and Regina Colombo. He was the younger of two sons; Pietro, his elder brother, died in 1983. He attended high school at the Manzoni Lyceum in Lecco, where he participated in the youth movement Gioventù Studentesca (Student Youth).

From 1986 to 1991 Scola served as consultor to the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. At the various institutes where he taught he promoted the establishment of bursaries to enable foreign students, particularly those from poorer countries, to study in Italy.

Scola was named Bishop of Grosseto on 18 July 1991, and was consecrated by Cardinal Bernardin Gantin (with Bishops Abele Conigli and Adelmo Tacconi serving as co-consecrators) on the following 21 September. As Bishop of Grosseto he promoted a renewal of catechesis in the diocese. Scola chose as his episcopal motto Sufficit gratia tua ("Your grace suffices", 2 Corinthians 12:9).

Scola in 1995 resigned as bishop of Grosseto to serve as rector of the Pontifical Lateran University in Rome and President of the Pontifical John Paul II Institute for Studies on Marriage and Family in Rome, with a term spent as visiting professor at the counterpart Institute in Washington, D.C., during which time he wrote a monograph on the theology of von Balthasar.

In 1995 he became a member of the Congregation for the Clergy. He also served as member of the Episcopal Commission for Catholic Education of the Italian Bishops' Conference and, from 1996, as president of the Committee for Institutes of Religious Studies which addresses questions of the theological formation of the laity in Italy.

From 1996 to 2001 Scola was a member of the Pontifical Council for Health Workers and wrote several texts on issues around health care. In 1996 he was named a member to the Pontifical Council for the Family.

Scola was appointed Patriarch of Venice on 5 January 2002, elected President of the Bishops' Conference of the Triveneta region on 9 April 2002 and created Cardinal-Priest of Santi XII Apostoli on 21 October 2003. As Patriarch Scola developed a reputation of openness and pastoral concern. In Venice, for instance, he set aside Wednesday mornings to meet anyone who wanted to see him, whether or not they had an appointment.

After the death of Pope John Paul II in 2005, Scola was considered to be among the papabili in the 2005 papal conclave that elected Joseph Ratzinger, Pope Benedict XVI.

On 17 January 2009 he was appointed a member of the Pontifical Council for Culture by Pope Benedict. On 5 January 2011 he was appointed among the first members of the newly created Pontifical Council for the Promotion of the New Evangelisation. He is also a member of the Congregation for Divine Worship.

On 28 June 2011 he was appointed to replace Cardinal Dionigi Tettamanzi as Archbishop of Milan. On 9 September 2011 he took possession of the Archdiocese of Milan by proxy. Scola received from Pope Benedict XVI the pallium of Metropolitan Archbishop of Milan on 21 September 2011 at Castel Gandolfo. On 25 September 2011 he was enthroned in Milan.

On 7 March 2012 he was appointed a member of the Congregation for the Oriental Churches. On 21 April he was appointed a member of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.

In a 2012 conference, Scola refuted the idea of the Second Vatican Council being a battle of continuity versus discontinuity, suggesting instead that the documents that were promulgated during the Council only further enriched the Church by expanding upon previous magisterial teachings. Scola said that "there is no animosity between Vatican II as an event and as a body of documents, but rather conformity".

In 2013, Scola again was a leading candidate to be elected pope—and the press service of the Italian Bishops' Conference mistakenly announced Scola's election—in the conclave that elected Cardinal Jorge Bergoglio, Pope Francis.

Scola supports stronger ecumenical ties between Catholicism and Islam "at a grassroots level" believing that there is much common ground between the two faiths, particularly, addressing persecution of Christian communities in the Middle East which Scola focuses on. The cardinal met with the Patriarch of Moscow Kirill on 12 November 2013, and previously said the meeting was not related in any way to the visit of President Vladimir Putin to Pope Francis at the Vatican.

Scola said in December 2014 that he had "discussed with Cardinals Marx, Daneels, and Schönborn in my 'minor circle' about the possible access to Communion for the divorced and remarried, but I cannot see how to combine on one side the indissolubility of the marriage, and on the other seeming to deny de facto the same principle". The cardinal suggested that the contradiction would result in "a separation between doctrine and pastoral care and discipline" which need to coexist in order to properly function. He said it was also difficult to raise the matter with younger couples suggesting that indissolubility becomes a watered down concept "if they know there will always be a possible exit".

Pope Francis accepted Scola's resignation on 7 July 2017 and appointed Bishop Mario Delpini as his successor. In retirement, Scola planned to live in Imberido, a village near Lake Annone.

Scola is in favor of celebrating the Tridentine Mass and has defended the 2007 motu proprio Summorum pontificum (by Pope Benedict XVI) alongside other conservative cardinals such as Camillo Ruini and Carlo Caffarra. In Padua in 2017, the cardinal issued a strong defense of the Mass and when he became Archbishop of Milan immediately sought to implement it despite his predecessor's attempts to block its implementation in the years prior. As Patriarch of Venice, Scola put the motu proprio into effect.

In 2018, Scola expressed his opposition to Communion for the divorced and civilly remarried unless they live in complete continence, the possibility of which has been the focus of controversy surrounding Pope Francis's apostolic exhortation Amoris laetitia. Scola said withholding Communion is "not a punishment that can be taken away or reduced, but is inherent in the very character of Christian marriage".