Church has never been "obsessed" with these issues, it's the modern western society that's obsessed with so-called "gay rights" at the moment and thus the media always point out what the Church says about homosexuality and present it as controversial. Catholic Church is a huge organisation with many members all over the world so it's not hard to find these "controversial" opinions seeing as there are thousands of priests and laymen who comment on modern problems from Catholic perspective, but it has never been an "obsession". Of course, the general public is not interested in what Catholic intellectuals and clergymen write about theological issues because hardly anyone knows much about basic Catholic theology, yet alone more complex issues. No one knows anything about Benedict XVI's theological views, most people only know that he was allegedly a "Nazi", "against gays" and "conservative". In reality, his views on social issues weren't that much different from what Francis I is saying (that includes views on homosexuality), but it's the media that portrays Francis I in more favourable light and tries to present him as some sort of "liberal". The only real difference is the approach to the masses and that -as the article points out- Francis doesn't want a smaller purer Church. But even here it has to be said that Benedict XVI had this vision for Europe, not the world in general. Church's position in Europe is complex and IMO it will need a radical change in its modus operandi here sooner or later.

I've been reading about Catholic social teachings through history a lot and this homosexuality issue was never one of the most important things. It's only recently that there's been more talk about that because it's the obsession of modern West and the Church has an opinion about this just like it has opinions on many different issues. Church can't isolate itself from what's going on in society. "Gay rights" are just the latest fashion of modern liberal Western "political correctness". Before that it was the Jews and holocaust and the public was moralizing how "anti-Semitic" the Church was non-stop, how it was "obsessed" about Jews etc. Before the Jews it was the Catholic "opression of women for 2000 years" and before that it was the Church's reactionary position and its alleged support for the "elites" against proletariat and things like that (when communist ideology was strong). It's always something that anti-Catholic modern West accuses the Church of being obsessed with, as if this was the main goal of the institution, to fight against this or that minority.

The truth is that the Catholic Church always played a positive role in Europe's history and history of the world in general. I'm not really religious, but for me the Church is the greatest institution ever. I'm much more sceptical about liberal and socialist ideological fanatism that's been present in Europe for some centuries now and has created wars and totalitarian regimes than I am about Catholic Church and its teachings.