Victims told: you're destroying the church

The royal commission has heard the Ballarat bishop allegedly told an abuse victim they would send the church bankrupt and destroy it.

A bishop told abuse victims they were trying to destroy the Catholic Church and in 40 years they would all be dead while the church would endure, the royal commission has heard.

Victim Andrew Collins told the commission Ballarat Bishop Paul Bird told him in 2013 that if the church had to pay an amount they were discussing to every survivor it would go bankrupt.

"Bishop Bird told us that we were intent on destroying his church," Mr Collins told the commission's Ballarat hearing.