As a matter of fact, i think (as a former RC lector) this is another parroted dubious claim. There is no official statement, but based on one priest's count, going to daily mass would result in hearing 13.5 % of the OT (w/o Psalms) and and 71.5 % of the NT being read during the Sundays & Weekdays cycle. Alex calculates this to be only 12.7% of the entire Bible (excluding Psalms) being heard by a weekly-Mass-attending Catholic.
In response to your common "Mass every day for three years, you will hear the entire Bible" assertion, a Catholic at Catholic Answers (http://forums.catholic.com/showpost.php?p=1063633&postcount=9) finds,
The readings for Sunday Mass are repeated every three years. The reading for Weekday Mass are repeated every two years. The following table, based on my own calculations (and therefore likely not entirely error-free), will give you an idea of about what percentage of the Bible, Testament, or each individual book of the Bible, you might hear read at Mass over the course of any three-year period, based on the number of verses read. (Note: All optional Mass readings were included. Also, a verse was counted even if only part of verse is used.)
Book(s) (verses) . . . . . . Sundays only . . Sundays & Weekdays
Entire Bible (35478). . . . . . 14% (5035) . . . 30% (10722)
Old Testament (27524) . . . 6% (1663) . . . . 18% (4830)
Book(s) (verses) . . . . . . . . . Sundays only . . Sundays & Weekdays
New Testament (7954) . . . . . . 42% (3372) . . . . 74% (5892)
And it is hard to hear the entire bible when it seems even in the weekly Sundays & Weekdays cycle Obadiah doesn't get a single reading, and only 1% of 1 Chronicles and 3% of 2 Chronicles, 5% of Leviticus and Lamentations, and 6% of Numbers and Proverbs, and 7% of Joshua and 8% of Ezra and Job (just in the under 10% category) are read.
Moreover, some readings are partial verses, while much of the amount of Scripture RCs are said to hear in mass is redundancy, with some even including "Amen" or like brief statements in their calculations.
In addition, while never universally banning personal Bible reading by the laity, or never printing some in the vernacular, Rome certainly hindered it during much of her history, while in modern times teaching liberal revisionism via her sanctioned Bible helps for decades.
Especially in Latin!
“As a matter of fact, i think (as a former RC lector) this is another parroted dubious claim.”
The Internet is a wonderful resource. It also provides fallacious information for the malicious to use in spreading error.
And I don’t need to go to mass every day for three years to read the entire Bible.
I can read it all the way through, all by myself, in far less time.