 Alfredo Vicente Scherer was born in Bom Princípio, Rio Grande do Sul, as the second child of Peter and Anna (née Opermann) Scherer.He studied at the seminary in Porto Alegre and the Pontifical Gregorian University in Rome, where he was ordained to the priesthood on April 3, 1926.He then served as private secretary to Archbishop João Batista Becker until 1933, when he began pastoral work in Porto Alegre.