the person and the hatred Catholics "must always have for sinful acts". In 2019, Burke chastised some of his fellow bishops for their perceived failures in keeping church teaching. He believes there are "pressure groups" within the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) who have been attempting to soften the church's attitude on homosexuality, including trying to remove the description "intrinsically disordered" from the discussion of homosexual acts in the Catechism, a change which Burke said is "not possible." Burke went on, "There is definitely within the hierarchy of the United States an element which is not coherent with the Church on these issues." He then criticized prelates who "promote Fr. James Martin ... within their dioceses." He alleged that Martin "is not coherent with the Church's teaching on homosexuality" and said that such promotion is "an indication to us that there is a serious difficulty within the hierarchy that must be addressed." In February 2019 Burke penned an open letter with Cardinal Walter Brandmuller addressed to Pope Francis calling for an end of "the plague of the homosexual agenda," which they blamed for the sexual abuse crisis engulfing the Catholic Church. They claimed the agenda was spread by "organized networks" protected by a "conspiracy of silence." Divorce Burke has opposed any hypothetical change of church doctrine that would permit civilly divorced Catholics who are validly married to remarry or receive the Eucharist once they have entered into a second civil marriage. In 2013 he co-authored a book with cardinals Gerhard Ludwig Müller and George Pell on the subject. An interim document from the 2014 Synod of Bishops softened the Catholic Church's language on gay people, contraception and divorced and civilly remarried people. Burke said that the response showed that "a great number of the Synod Fathers found it objectionable." In an interview with Catholic World Report, Burke said the document "lacks a solid foundation in the Sacred Scriptures and the Magisterium (the teaching authority of the Catholic Church) and gives the impression of inventing a totally new, what one member of the Synod called 'revolutionary', teaching on marriage and the family." Burke went on to say, in an interview with BuzzFeed, that if "Pope Francis had selected certain cardinals to steer the meeting so as to advance his personal views on matters like divorce and the treatment of LGBT people", he would not be observing his mandate as