Did Pope Francis Forgive 4,444 Pedophile Priests in Australia?

On 27 February 2018, the dubious web site YourNewsWire.com article in the German newspaper Deutsche Welle as its source, which in no way substantiated the claim Pope Francis had forgiven or

covered up the acts of 4,444 priests in Australia:

On Monday, an Australian commission reported that 4,444 alleged incidents of abuse by Catholic priests over a 60-year period had not been investigated. Roughly seven percent of all priests

in Australia were accused at least once.

Canberra set up the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse in 2012 following years of mounting pressure to look into the claims of pedophilia.

"Between 1950 and 2010, overall seven percent of priests were alleged perpetrators," said Gail Furness, the lawyer in charge of questioning at the Sydney inquiry. "The accounts were

depressingly similar. Children were ignored or worse, punished. Allegations were not investigated. Priests and religious (figures) were moved."

Furness added that "the parishes or communities to which they were moved knew nothing of their past. Documents were not kept or they were destroyed. Secrecy prevailed as did cover ups."

Notably, the Deutsche Welle article never mentioned Pope Francis, only Vatican finance chief George Pell, who the paper reported was implicated in the inquiry. The piece went on to say that

the inquiry had found over 1,880 perpetrators, 90 percent of whom were men (about 1,700).  

The commission was set up to look into incidents between 1950 and 2010, three years before Pope Francis's March 2013 election. Predictably, no other outlet (credible or otherwise) made any

claims Pope Francis forgave or concealed the actions of 4,444 Australian child predators.

The Pope has come under fire recently for appointing Juan Barros bishop of Osorno, Chile, after victims accused Barros of covering up sexual abuse by a priest in Santiago.