Yes, Pope Francis did the right thing, eventually, but this should never have taken as long as it did. From The Wall Street Journal:

Vatican Rules Out Blessings for Same-Sex Relationships, Despite Calls for Liberalization

Pope Francis pushes back at some liberal bishops’ call for church to embrace gay unions

By Francis X. Rocca | Updated March 15, 2021 | 9:55 AM EDT

ROME—The Vatican on Monday forbade blessings of same-sex relationships, contradicting calls for the practice by progressive bishops in Germany and elsewhere, and setting a limit to the conciliatory approach to gay people that has marked Pope Francis’ pontificate.

The Vatican’s doctrinal office, in a document personally approved by Pope Francis, said it wasn’t permissible for clergy to pronounce blessings on any sexual relationship outside of marriage between a man and a woman.

His Holiness the Pope helped to start the movement which many hoped would lead to allowing homosexual unions to be blessed by the Church, perhaps including approving homosexual marriages, with his silly response to a question early in his pontificate:

On Gay Priests, Pope Francis Asks, ‘Who Am I to Judge?’

By Rachel Donadio | July 29, 2013

ROME — For generations, homosexuality has largely been a taboo topic for the Vatican, ignored altogether or treated as “an intrinsic moral evil,” in the words of the previous pope.

In that context, brief remarks by Pope Francis suggesting that he would not judge priests for their sexual orientation, made aboard the papal airplane on the way back from his first foreign trip, to Brazil, resonated through the church. Never veering from church doctrine opposing homosexuality, Francis did strike a more compassionate tone than that of his predecessors, some of whom had largely avoided even saying the more colloquial “gay.”

“If someone is gay and he searches for the Lord and has good will, who am I to judge?” Francis told reporters, speaking in Italian but using the English word “gay.”

Francis’s words could not have been more different from those of Benedict XVI, who in 2005 wrote that homosexuality was “a strong tendency ordered toward an intrinsic moral evil,” and an “objective disorder.” The church document said men with “deep-seated homosexual tendencies” should not become priests.

Who is he to judge? He’s the Pope, that’s who he is, and yes, that does include judgement.

The document reaffirms Catholic teaching on marriage and sexuality when several liberal bishops, including the head of the German Catholic bishops’ conference, have called for blessing same-sex couples in committed relationships. Priests in Germany have widely blessed such couples for years, as have clergy in some other parts of Northern Europe.

Such blessings are wrong, the Vatican said on Monday, because they would seem “to approve and encourage a choice and a way of life that cannot be recognized as objectively ordered to the revealed plans of God,” adding that God “does not and cannot bless sin.”

All of that is in the Catechism of the Catholic Church, which every priest and every deacon and every bishop, archbishop and cardinal should have, and with which he should be familiar.

§2357 Homosexuality refers to relations between men or between women who experience an exclusive or predominant sexual attraction toward persons of the same sex. It has taken a great variety of forms through the centuries and in different cultures. Its psychological genesis remains largely unexplained. Basing itself on Sacred Scripture, which presents homosexual acts as acts of grave depravity,¹⁴⁰ tradition has always declared that “homosexual acts are intrinsically disordered.”¹⁴¹ They are contrary to the natural law. They close the sexual act to the gift of life. They do not proceed from a genuine affective and sexual complementarity. Under no circumstances can they be approved.

§2358 The number of men and women who have deep-seated homosexual tendencies is not negligible. This inclination, which is objectively disordered, constitutes for most of them a trial. They must be accepted with respect, compassion, and sensitivity. Every sign of unjust discrimination in their regard should be avoided. These persons are called to fulfill God’s will in their lives and, if they are Christians, to unite to the sacrifice of the Lord’s Cross the difficulties they may encounter from their condition.

§2359 Homosexual persons are called to chastity. By the virtues of self-mastery that teach them inner freedom, at times by the support of disinterested friendship, by prayer and sacramental grace, they can and should gradually and resolutely approach Christian perfection.

What part of “under no circumstances can they be approved” do some priests and bishops find unclear?

I get it: the left believe that it’s just wrong to deny homosexuals their desires, but a Catholic priest, a Catholic bishop, must follow the teachings of the Bible in which they all profess to believe, and the Bible is unambiguous in its condemnation of homosexual activity, in both the Old and New Testaments. While some have claimed that Jesus never personally addressed homosexual activity, specifically, they are incorrect.

Matthew 5:17 “Do not presume that I came to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I did not come to abolish, but to fulfill.
18 For truly I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not the smallest letter or stroke of a letter shall pass from the Law, until all is accomplished! 19 Therefore, whoever nullifies one of the least of these commandments, and teaches others to do the same, shall be called least in the kingdom of heaven; but whoever keeps and teaches them, he shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven.
20 “For I say to you that unless your righteousness far surpasses that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will not enter the kingdom of heaven.

The law included the prohibition on homosexual activity in Leviticus 18:22, and proscribes the penalty in Leviticus 20:13. There is no ambiguity whatsoever in this.

Back to the Journal:

German bishops have tangled with the Vatican on other matters, including the question of giving Communion to Lutherans, and are unlikely to back down in their stance on blessing gay unions. German bishops and lay Catholics are currently involved in a national synod that is considering changes to aspects of church life, including the possibility of women clergy and teaching on sexuality.

A move by German bishops to approve blessings of same-sex unions would exacerbate tensions with more conservative parts of the church, including in Africa and the U.S. Conservative bishops in the U.S. have been critical of what they see as an excessively progressive drift away from traditional teachings, with the archbishop of Denver warning in 2019 that the German bishops are moving toward a schism.

It has been said that if it is a choice between heresy and schism, choose heresy, because it is an action that is solely your own, while schism injures the Body of Christ that is the Church.

Pope Francis has taken a more liberal approach than his predecessors to some questions of marriage and sexuality, including divorce and homosexuality. In one of the most famous statements of his pontificate, he responded to a question about gay clergy in 2013: “Who am I to judge?” During his 2015 visit to the U.S., he met privately with a gay couple in Washington, D.C.

In comments published last year, the pope expressed support for same-sex civil unions, saying that gay couples “have the right to be legally covered,” a stance he had held as archbishop of Buenos Aires.

But the pope has also written that “there are absolutely no grounds for considering homosexual unions to be in any way similar or even remotely analogous to God’s plan for marriage and family.”

This is where the Pope has failed: in attempting to soft-peddle the issue, in attempting to be nice and conciliatory toward homosexuals, as a good liberal should do, he opened the door to the hope of many that he would, he could, change the teachings in the Bible.

But, in the end, you can be a 21^th century liberal, or you can be a Catholic; you really cannot be both. Some current liberal views, such as those on immigration, can easily fall within biblical teachings and the traditions of the Church. We can easily reconcile opposition to capital punishment with the Bible, because we now have modern methods of permanent incarceration that the Israelites lacked in their journeys through the wilderness.

But modern liberal beliefs on homosexuality and transgenderism and marriage are simply and unequivocally opposed to the Bible, and there’s no ambiguity, no wiggle room there. Priests and bishops who ‘bless’ homosexual unions are, in plain effect, giving their blessings to sin; it is clearly blasphemy, a sin in itslef.

“It is not surprising but still disappointing,” said Francis DeBernardo, executive director of New Ways Ministry, which advocates for LGBT Catholics. “This decision though is an impotent one because it will not stop the Catholic people in the pews, nor many Catholic leaders, who are eager for such blessings to happen.”

Sadly, His Excellency The Most Reverend John Eric Stowe, O.F.M. Conv, Bishop of Lexington, has supported the misbegotten New Ways Ministry. As a parish priest, Bishop Stowe is excellent; I’ve attended two Masses in which he was the celebrant, and there is no question in my mind at all that he truly believes in Jesus.

But when it comes to homosexuality, he has truly lost his way. When I see Joseph Cardinal Tobin, Archbishop of Newark, on the list, I am seeing a prince of the Church, and one of the voters who will select the next Pope, when Francis retires or dies.

The question of homosexuality has roiled other Christian denominations, fomenting division within the world-wide Anglican Communion between liberal churches in Europe and North America and more conservative churches in Africa. Last year, the United Methodist Church agreed in principle to split because of disagreements over same-sex marriage and gay clergy, though a meeting to approve the move has been delayed because of the pandemic.

Protestants have already suffered through denominational schisms over this issue. I would like to think that the Holy Father has put this issue to rest for a while, but I can too easily see the next Pope deciding to be ‘trendy,’ and sin, it seems, is very trendy.