Protestant Objection #6: The Papists chained down the Bible to stop people reading it

 Mr Protestant claims: The Papists chained down the Bible to stop people reading it

This claim is not only historically false, but logically a fallacy. First off, the historical record. I quote here from Catholic Answers: ​

The amount of labor that went into each copy of the Bible led to preventing their theft either by locking them in containers or chaining them to desks. In other words, these were security measures, not efforts to keep Scripture from the faithful.

Indeed, protecting an expensive Bible by securing it allowed greater, not lesser, access to it. Moreover, the Bible was usually placed in a public area of a church so those who could read could peruse its pages. The first mention of this protective policy occurs in the mid eleventh century in the catalogue of St. Peter’s Monastery in Weissenburg, Alsace, where it was recorded that four Psalters were chained in the church. Moreover, the practice was not exclusive to the Catholic Church: Protestants also utilized the well-known security measure, as evidenced by the chaining of the Great Bible (also known as the Chained Bible) published by command of King Henry VIII of England in 1539. [Emphasis mine]

To back this up, the National Churches Trust makes mention of this accompanied by a photo of a Bible locked inside a protective case. 

So we see that the practise of chaining Bibles down was to prevent theft, not to stop people reading it. And, once again, Mr. Protestant is ignorant of history, and thus ends up condemning a practise that his own Protestant ancestors were guilty of using! Oh, the irony! 

And next, the logical fallacy.

Question: Why would the Church have Bibles copied/printed, and then distributed to Churches, etc, if the intent was to have them chained down to prevent their being read? 

Answer: She wouldn't, because She is not a idiot!

You mean to tell me, Mr. Protestant, that you believe that the Catholic Church had volumes of Bibles printed and then distributed (and, don't forget, translated into the vernacular) in order for the same Bibles to be banned from being read by the faithful? Do you know how stupid that sounds? Why on God's green earth would She go to all the trouble of having monks transcribing BY HAND entire Bibles for 5 years for each Bible, illumined with attention to detail and artistry in order to beautify the Sacred Scriptures, in order for that art and, more important, the Truth contained within to be then prohibited from ever seeing the light of day, or even the light of the mind?!

Mr. Protestant, actually stop and think about what you just said! You sound imbecilic and ignorant. 

Pray for the conversion of Protestants to the true Catholic Faith!