Pell wrote of a need to "deepen friendship and understanding" with Muslims in the post–September 11 environment and said that though there is a continuing struggle throughout the Muslim world between moderates and men of violence, he believed that, in Australia, "the moderates are in control". In 2004, speaking to the Acton Institute on the problems of "secular democracy", Pell drew a parallel between Islam and communism: "Islam may provide in the 21st century, the attraction that communism provided in the 20th, both for those that are alienated and embittered on the one hand and for those who seek order or justice on the other."
