Murder in a place of worship felt more deeply.

Is it worse because the massacre was at a mosque? If an assassin had sprayed bullets into a crowd of Muslims at a banquet hall, or shopping centre, would not it have been just as reprehensible? If the university professor had been killed in class, or the dépanneur proprietor at his halal corner store, would it not have been as devastating?

Surely yes, yet we feel it more intensely because it was at a mosque, and not just for those of us who spend plenty of time in houses of worship. Somehow it does make it worse.

Canada’s recent experience with terrorism has introduced us to that something else, that something worse. There were the Toronto 18, plotting to attack federal institutions and capture and kill the prime minister. There was Corporal Nathan Cirillo, killed at the cenotaph while standing on guard over the tomb of the unknown soldier. His killer then raced into Parliament, finally taken down in the Hall of Honour by the mace-bearer, an officer of the House of Commons. Now a mosque, with pious Muslims at prayer.

Terror directed at the chief magistrate, at the guardians of memory, at the military, at parliament – all this manifests a particular hatred for the common institutions of society. The killing of Muslims is driven by hatred for them, but the killing in the mosque of men at prayer is something more, something worse. To kill those at worship is an act of lethal contempt for that most transcendent of human relations, the colloquy of creatures with their creator.

It is blasphemy to kill in the name of God. We don’t know as yet the motivations of the murderer at the Islamic Cultural Centre. It is certainly a sacrilege to kill in the house of prayer.

Two years ago I visited the synagogue in Jerusalem where four ultra- Orthodox Jews were killed during their morning prayers. I hope to visit at some point the Quebec City mosque to offer prayers and solidarity with those Muslims killed during their evening prayers. The words of Psalm 113 come to mind: From the rising of the sun to its setting may the name of the Lord be praised!

“The blood of the innocent cries out to heaven. That cry does not have to travel far, as when slaughter is visited upon the very houses of worship where one goes to encounter God.”

I wrote that in these pages in August 2012, after the massacre at a Sikh temple in Wisconsin. I could have rewritten them in 2015 after the massacre of members of the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charles- ton, South Carolina. That same month the Church of the Multiplication on the Sea of Galilee was firebombed.

There is a sorrowful litany of murderous violence. The massacre of 29 Muslims at the Cave of the Patriarchs in Hebron, where both Jews and Muslims venerate the tombs of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. The killing of 58 parishioners in the Syriac Catholic Cathedral in Baghdad during a Sunday evening Mass, including the priest offering the Holy Mass and the one hearing confessions. Coptic Christians in Egypt were killed upon leaving Mass during the Christmas season. The Shia mosque in Baghdad bombed, killing 17. The desecration and then blowing up of the shrine of Nabi Yunus ( the prophet Jonah), an important Shia holy site. The massacre of 73 people inside a Sunni mosque in Baquba, Iraq. After the Charlie Hebdo terror attack in Paris, more than 40 Catholic churches were burned in Niamey, the capital of Niger. The 21st century has crossed a line that was to be respected even during war, that of sacrilegious violence.

There is a principle, controverted to be sure, of “sanctuary” whereby police will not enter a house of worship to remove a suspect or, more commonly, someone for deportation. Panamanian dictator Manuel Noriega famously appealed to that and diplomatic extraterritoriality when he holed up for a time in the Holy See embassy, seeking refuge from American troops. The very word “sanctuary” is mocked when the sanctuaries are no longer safe.

In many places in Canada the rhythm of prayer has been largely forgotten. Our Muslim citizens tend to forget less, and therefore remind us of that common colloquy with God. The deaths of the six men at prayer in the Quebec mosque are a more powerful reminder still. Sacred may their memory be.

IT IS BLASPHEMY TO KILL IN THE NAME OF GOD.