I have a friend who was raised Catholic and he said he never saw a Bible until he was an adult and I think a quite mature one, at that.
You wrote:
“I have a friend who was raised Catholic and he said he never saw a Bible until he was an adult and I think a quite mature one, at that.”
I know dozens of Protestants who say they never saw a complete Bible until they read a Catholic one. That I can understand since Protestants cut books out of their Bibles.
I do not understand how it is possible for a Catholic - a practicing, “churched”, Catholic - to not see a Bible in his home, or a store, or a Church, or a rectory, or in a Catholic school, or even a public school back in the day, or in a friend’s home, etc. How is that possible? That would mean this guy (living in America?) never went ONCE to a library, or a book store, or to a Christian friend’s house (whether Catholic or Protestant), etc. Did he live in a cave? Was he kept in a basement? Seriously, I have at least half a dozen Catholic Bibles and New Testaments that are more than 50 years old. How can I have these now, when your friend never saw them then?
He may be your friend, but this point is inescapable, if he is telling the truth, he was an INCREDIBLY ignorant, intellectually lazy man. Or he is simply a liar.