No one should ever be in fear while attending a religious service.

Whether he or she is a Catholic, a Jew, a Muslim, a Baptist, a Lutheran, an Episcopalian, a Quaker, a Mormon, a Methodist, a Hindu, a Buddhist, or something else, those who live in America should feel free – and safe – to worship as they choose.

This is not a new concept. The first clause of the First Amendment to the Constitution states: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.”

While every religion is obviously unique and different, there are few traits they seem to share. Those who practice them are looking for a sense of belonging, a sense of peace and a sense of security.

We are, therefore, struggling to find the words to react the unspeakable tragedy that took place at the Pittsburgh Tree of Life Synagogue on Saturday.

“All these Jews need to die,” Robert Gregory Bowers reportedly said while in the process of using his AR-15 rifle to mow down defenseless and unsuspecting victims.

Ultimately, eight men and three women died as a result of the attack, while several others sustained significant injuries.

“The loss is incalculable,” Stephen Cohen, co-president of New Light Congregation, which rents space at Tree of Life, told the Associated Press.

Chris Hall, a neighbor of Bowers, said he never heard or saw anything to indicate that Bowers harbored anti-Semitic views or posed a threat. Bowers kept to himself, he said.

“The most terrifying thing is just how normal he seemed,” Hall told the AP. “I wish I knew what was going on inside his head. Maybe something could have been done. I don’t know.”

Sadly, acts of violence at a church are nothing new. In 1963, a white supremacist used a bomb to kill four African-American children at a church in Birmingham, Alabama.

More recently, in 2015, Dylann Roof used a handgun to murder nine people inside the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, South Carolina.

As Americans, we need to start focusing more on what we have in common – and less on what makes us different. Doing that will go a long way toward ending abhorrent acts of violence against the innocent, such as that which occurred in Pittsburgh on Saturday.