29 Facts About Angelo Scola

Angelo Scola was Archbishop of Milan from 2011 to 2017.

Angelo Scola served as Patriarch of Venice from 2002 to 2011.

Angelo Scola has been a cardinal since 2003 and a bishop since 1991.

Angelo Scola was the younger of two sons; Pietro, his elder brother, died in 1983.

Angelo Scola attended high school at the Manzoni Lyceum in Lecco, where he participated in the youth movement Gioventu Studentesca.

Angelo Scola studied philosophy at the Catholic University of the Sacred Heart from 1964 to 1967, obtaining his doctorate with a dissertation on Christian philosophy under the supervision of Gustavo Bontadini, master of Emanuele Severino.

At the university Angelo Scola met Luigi Giussani, the founder of the Catholic movement Communion and Liberation.

In 1969 Angelo Scola was denied permission to be ordained subdeacon a year early.

On 18 July 1970 Angelo Scola was ordained to the priesthood in Teramo by Bishop Abele Conigli.

Angelo Scola earned a second doctorate in theology from the University of Fribourg, Switzerland.

An active collaborator in the Communion and Liberation movement from the early 1970s, Angelo Scola was the Italian editor of the journal Communio founded by Henri de Lubac, Hans Urs von Balthasar, and Joseph Ratzinger.

Angelo Scola conducted book-length interviews with de Lubac and von Balthasar.

From 1986 to 1991 Angelo Scola served as consultor to the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.

Angelo Scola was named Bishop of Grosseto on 18 July 1991, and was consecrated by Cardinal Bernardin Gantin on the following 21 September.

Angelo Scola chose as his episcopal motto Sufficit gratia tua.

Angelo Scola 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 Angelo Scola was a member of the Pontifical Council for Health Workers and wrote several texts on issues around health care.

Angelo Scola is a member of the Congregation for Divine Worship.

Angelo 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.

Angelo Scola received from Pope Benedict XVI the pallium of Metropolitan Archbishop of Milan on 21 September 2011 at Castel Gandolfo.

Angelo Scola knows Italian, English, German, French and a little Spanish.

In retirement, Angelo Scola planned to live in Imberido, a village near Lake Annone.

In 2018, Angelo 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.

Angelo 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".

Angelo Scola said in December 2014 that he had "discussed with Cardinals Marx, Daneels, and Schonborn 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".

Angelo Scola said it was 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".

Angelo Scola has said in the past that it is his duty to connect with the Orthodox faithful living in his archdiocese, "giving them churches where they can celebrate the divine liturgy and our experience of a greatly fraternal relationship".

Angelo Scola said that "there is no animosity between Vatican II as an event and as a body of documents, but rather conformity".

Angelo Scola favors celebrating the Tridentine Mass and has defended Pope Benedict's 2007 authorization of its wider use alongside other conservative cardinals such as Camillo Ruini and Carlo Caffarra.