Pope given copy of US Senate bill on Minnesota shooting by co-sponsor Klobuchar

By Joshua McElwee

VATICAN CITY (Reuters) -Pope Leo was presented on Friday with a copy of a U.S. Senate resolution commemorating the victims of a shooting in August at a Minnesota Catholic Church and school, given to him by Senator Amy Klobuchar, one of the bill’s co-sponsors.

Leo, the first U.S. pope, is seen holding the resolution in a Vatican handout photo while standing next to Klobuchar, a Democrat from Minnesota who was part of a papal event on Friday.

Two children were killed and 18 teachers and children were wounded on August 27 when a gunman fired through stained-glass windows at Annunciation Catholic School.

The horrific attack renewed debate in the U.S. about gun control, while days after the event Leo made an unusual intervention at a weekly Sunday prayer gathering to ask that God “stop the pandemic of arms, large and small”.

The Senate resolution, a non-legislative statement co-sponsored by fellow Minnesota Democrat Tina Smith, passed the Senate by unanimous consent in September.

Klobuchar was taking part on Friday in a meeting at the Vatican between Leo and Ukrainian children who were rescued from Russian-occupied Ukrainian territories.

The delegation thanked Leo for the meeting in a statement, and said it had delivered a letter to him from Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy appealing for the Vatican to take on a formal role in helping return children from Russia.

(Reporting by Joshua McElweeEditing by Gareth Jones)