[2] During this time served as vice-president and thereafter President of the Milanese diocesan chapter of the Federazione Universitaria Cattolica Italiana, the university student wing of Catholic Action.

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.

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

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.

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.

[6] In 2004, he founded the Studium Generale Marcianum, an academic institute, and the journal Oasis, published in Italian, English, French, Arabic and Urdu as an outreach to Christians in the Muslim world.

[14] 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.

[15] 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.

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.

[18] Scola has said in the past that it is also 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".

The cardinal has also said that while doctrinal and theological differences may linger, it was essential to recognize and collaborate on tackling common issues "like the family, justice, life".

[19] 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.