Bishop Peter Connors, pictured in 2013. Photo: Joe Armao

A former senior Catholic church official has admitted that he had no excuse for failing to escalate complaints about predator priests.

Bishop Peter Connors, who worked as secretary to archbishop of Melbourne Frank Little from 1974 to 1976, and vicar-general of the Melbourne archdiocese from 1976 to 1987, told the child abuse royal commission  the former archbishop had failed to respond to complaints against clergy as late as the 1990s, despite being aware of allegations against priests decades earlier. 

He agreed with Archbishop Denis Hart's assessment earlier this week that a "paralysis" plagued Archbishop Little's office.

On Monday, the commission heard that children were in danger of being targeted by paedophile priests for decades because of the Melbourne archdiocese's failure to respond to complaints. 

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"There was a complete failure of the Archbishop and his advisors to deal with these issues," Bishop Connors told the royal commission on Wednesday. 

Bishop Connors agreed that the failings which occurred while he was a vicar-general under Archbishop Little were motivated out of a desire to protect the church.

He said while he could not have personally taken action against Wilfred "Billy" Baker, who was the subject of abuse allegations dating back to 1978, he should have insisted that Archbishop Little remove him from ministry.

Baker was convicted in 1999 of 16 counts of indecent assault and one count of gross indecency against boys between 1960 and 1979. The church has paid out more than $1 million to Baker's victims for abuse that took place up to 1985.

Bishop Connors said he should have become directly involved when complaints were made against clergy, but failed to do so because of a lack of direction from Archbishop Little.

"I think that I was floundering, not quite sure what he wanted me to do with those complaints," he said on Wednesday.

"There was no process in place, but it doesn't excuse me," he said. "I could have kept the archbishop reminded of what the situation was with Father Baker and I failed to do that."

Bishop Connors accepted that everyone from the archbishop down, including auxiliary bishops, vicar-generals, members of the Curia and personnel advisory board members completely failed parishioners on Baker.

Asked by commissioner Andrew Murray whether senior church officials ever discussed the fact that they might be concealing crimes, Bishop Connors said:

"Accepting my own failings and closeness to the archbishop, I would expect that the other bishops would have raised the issue, particularly that we were concealing a crime."

Former St James Primary School principal, Patricia Taylor, told the commission she met with Bishop Connors when he was an auxiliary bishop to raise concerns about Baker in 1992.

She had already been warned by the Catholic Education Office and two other people about allegations against Baker, who was being moved from Gladstone Park to the Richmond North parish adjoining her school.

Bishop Connors agreed with Ms Taylors' account of the meeting, in which she said he told her "research shows once a paedophile always a paedophile". 

Bishop Connors said at that stage he had "no doubt at all" that Baker was a paedophile, but could not recall whether he discussed the matter with Archbishop Little.

The commission was also told that Little, who was archbishop of Melbourne from 1974 to 1996, kept "secret files" detailing complaints about priests "acting out sexually" with adults.

Bishop Connors said the archbishop confided in him on some cases but did not share the confidential files he had on the priests.

The hearing in Melbourne continues.