OutboundPathProcessorInterface::processOutbound $options['absolute'] does not work

Problem/Motivation

I am trying to use the OutboundPathProcessorInterface so that when a user clicks this link: '/node/7849', he is redirected to this URL:
'https://churchages.net/en/sermon/wesley/laying-the-foundation-of-the-new...';

If I do NOT use $options['absolute'] = TRUE, I get the full URL of my site prepended to the link output:

https://bible.booksai.org/node/https%3A/churchages.net/en/sermon/wesley/...

If I DO use $options['absolute'] = TRUE, I get nothing at all. When I hoover over the link, nothing appears. When I click on it, it takes me to a blank page: about:blank#blocked

Steps to reproduce

Created the class file:

namespace Drupal\solrai\PathProcessor;

use Drupal\Core\PathProcessor\OutboundPathProcessorInterface;
use Symfony\Component\HttpFoundation\Request;

class MyOutboundPathProcessor implements OutboundPathProcessorInterface {

	public function processOutbound($path, &$options = [], Request $request = NULL, $bubbleable_metadata = NULL) {
		// Check if the path is in your table
		$result = $this->lookupPathInTable($path);

		// If a matching destination path is found, replace it and set external if needed
		if ($result) {
			$path = $result['path'];
			if ($result['absolute']) {
				$options['absolute'] = TRUE;
			}
		}

		return $path;
	}

	private function lookupPathInTable($path) {
		// Define the mappings of paths to their respective URLs
		$pathMappings = [
			'/node/7849' => 'https://churchages.net/en/sermon/wesley/laying-the-foundation-of-the-new-chapel/',
			'/node/7850' => 'https://churchages.net/en/sermon/wesley/death-of-rev-mr-john-fletcher/'
		];

		// Check if the path exists in the mapping
		if (array_key_exists($path, $pathMappings)) {
			return [
				'path' => $pathMappings[$path],
				'absolute' => TRUE
			];
		}

		// Return null if no matching path is found
		return null;
	}
}

In the class file, if the incoming $path matches a mapping in my lookupPathInTable($path) method, then I return the external URL with $options['absolute'] = TRUE. However, this results in NO link: about:blank#blocked

All of the documentation I have found so far appear to state that the above is the way to redirect to an external URL using OutboundPathProcessorInterface, but it's not working.

Proposed resolution

If this is a bug, has it been resolved in newer core versions? If not, how do I resolve?