A potentially explosive report into the handling of child sex abuse in the Catholic Church will be published on Thursday in Germany, with former Pope Benedict XVI among those in the spotlight.

The report by the law firm, Westpfahl Spilker Wastl (WSW), will analyze how abuse cases were dealt with in the archdiocese of Munich and Freising between 1945 and 2019.

Pope emeritus Benedict XVI, whose civilian name is Josef Ratzinger, was the archbishop of Munich from 1977 to 1982.  

During this time, a now-notorious pedophile priest named Peter Hullermann was transferred to Munich from Essen in western Germany, where he had been accused of abusing an 11-year-old boy.

According to German media reports, the ex-pope has provided an 82-page statement in response to WSW.

Benedict XVI "takes the fates of the abuse victims very much to heart" and is entirely "in favor of the publication of the Munich report," his spokesman Georg Gaenswein told the Bild daily.

In 2013, the 94-year-old became the first pope ever to step down from the role in 600 years and now lives a secluded life in a former convent inside the grounds of the Vatican.