To clergy abuse victim Phil Nagle, former Ballarat bishop Ronald Mulkearns was a truly evil man who destroyed countless lives by protecting paedophile priests.

The 1971-1997 Ballarat bishop has died without revealing the full extent of what he and others in the Catholic Church knew about widespread child abuse in the Victorian diocese.

“He certainly told us enough to know he was truly an evil man in covering up what was going on in Ballarat, in particular when he was in charge,” Mr Nagle told AAP.

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“Whilst he takes some of those secrets to the grave with him, I think we know enough to know that he knew a lot.”

The child abuse royal commission has heard Bishop Mulkearns knew paedophile priest Gerald Francis Ridsdale and others were sexually abusing children and moved them between parishes, and he also destroyed documents in Ridsdale’s file.

“He’s just so responsible, this guy, for a lot of what happened in Ballarat,” Mr Nagle said.

“Even though he wasn’t a perpetrator, he certainly knew and certainly covered it up.

“He ruined a lot of lives.”

Bishop Mulkearns died from cancer on Monday morning, aged 85, before he could finish his royal commission evidence.

He gave evidence via videolink from his Ballarat nursing home in February but his questioning finished after 90 minutes on medical advice.

Bishop Mulkearns said he was sorry and regretted the way he handled the problem of paedophilia in the Ballarat diocese.

“I certainly wanted to protect the reputation of the church. I wanted to make sure these incidents didn’t happen in the future and tried my best to work in such a way that it didn’t happen again,” he told the commission.

Cardinal George Pell, a 1977-1984 adviser to Bishop Mulkearns, has told the commission the bishop deceived him about Ridsdale.

Current Ballarat Bishop Paul Bird said those who knew Bishop Mulkearns personally will remember a man who was dedicated in his service as bishop and over his 60 years as a priest.

“At the same time, Bishop Mulkearns himself acknowledged that he had made some tragic mistakes during his time as bishop,” Bishop Bird said.

Abuse survivors say bishop shouldn’t be honoured

Ballarat abuse survivor Stephen Woods said it was tragic Bishop Mulkearns was not more transparent about who knew what about the abuse.

“He should have done better even then, right on the point of his death, of releasing files and telling authorities where the bodies are buried,” Mr Woods said.

Victims’ advocacy group Broken Rites spokesman Dr Wayne Chamley doubts Bishop Mulkearns would have been prepared to disclose more information in a further commission hearing, given he had already had plenty of time to reveal what he knew.

“In our experience he knew a vast amount that he was not prepared to put on the public record,” Dr Chamley said.

“I always considered that his behaviour in all this was culpable because of what he failed to do as a responsible bishop.”

-AAP