Scola could be the top choice among cardinals who want a dynamic, cosmopolitan head of the Roman Catholic Church.

He had a humble beginning as the son of a truck driver.

Scola says he is "proud to come from a very poor family."

Scola was appointed Patriarch of Venice in 2002 and was elevated to cardinal in 2003.

He was a professor and a rector at Lateran University.

In 1995, he became the head of the John Paul II Institute for Studies on Marriage and Family.

He is a multi-linguist, and is said to have helped draft recent encyclicals in which Pope John Paul II restated his defence of conservative Catholic doctrines on moral issues.