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“So, right off the bat we see that this was never issued by the Catholic Church in the first place.”

That is silly. The secular government enforced the rule of the Catholic Church. It is like claiming the Catholic Church never put anyone to death, but merely turned over heretics to be burned by the state. That sort of sophistry might impress a Catholic apologist, but the person being burned alive for being in conflict with the Catholic Church might not appreciate the distinction.

Perhaps you prefer:

“In 1584 Pius IV published the index prepared by the commission mentioned above. Herein ten rules are laid down, of which the fourth reads thus: “Inasmuch as it is manifest from experience that if the Holy Bible, translated into the vulgar tongue, be indiscriminately allowed to every one, the rashness of men will cause more evil than good to arise from it, it is, on this point, referred to the judgment of the bishops or inquisitors, who may, by the advice of the priest or confessor, permit the reading of the Bible translated into the vulgar tongue by Catholic authors, to those persons whose faith and piety they apprehend will be augmented and not injured by it; and this permission must be had in writing.”

Yes, a wealthy man, or one firmly entrenched in the Catholic Church and unlikely to challenge it COULD get permission to read a vernacular translation, but the common man could not.

Vernacular translations ONLY for those whose loyalty to the Catholic Church was unquestioned. The Catholic Church had little to fear from Princes and the wealthy, but much to worry about when commoners could read for themselves.

When Ferdinand and Isabella (1474-1516) prohibited the translation of the Bible into the vernacular or the possession of such translations, did they do so in opposition to the Catholic Church and Inquisition, or in conformity to it? When the state burned men alive for heresy, as judged by the Catholic Church, was the Catholic Church innocent of their lives? When Church and State were one and the same, what distinction do you draw - at least, that you expect anyone to believe?

Had the Pope declared that commoners SHOULD be able to read the Word of God in the vernacular, do you really think it would not have happened? Or that secular rulers would have continued to punish and kill those who tried to do so?

You are trying to draw a distinction between the secular powers and the religious ones at a time when they were one and the same. When Thomas More killed heretics, was he acting secularly or religiously? Did he conceive of a difference? When he slandered the translation of Tyndale - an excellent translation, BTW - was his attack motivated by politics or by Catholicism? When Bishop Tunstall burned Tyndale’s translation in public, was he acting with the Catholic Church, or in opposition to it?

As a matter of policy, the Catholic Church opposed vernacular translation for commoners.

As William Tyndale wrote a few years before his execution for heresy:

” Moreover Moses saith, Deuteronomy “Hear, Israel; let these words which I command thee this day stick fast in thine heart, and whet them on thy children, and talk of them as thou sittest in thine house...”

This was commanded generally unto all men...How can we whet God’s word (that is, to put it in practice, use and exercise) upon our children and household, when we are violently kept from it and know it not?

How can we (as Peter commandeth) give a reason of our hope; when we wot not what it is that God hath promised, or what to hope? Moses also commandeth in the said chapter, if the son ask what the testimonies, laws, and observances of the Lord mean, that the father teach him. If our children ask what our ceremonies...mean; no father can tell his son...

They will say haply, the scripture requireth a pure mind and a quiet mind; and therefore the lay-man, because he is altogether cumbered with worldly business, cannot understand them. If that be the cause, then it is a plain case that our prelates understand not the scriptures themselves: for no layman is so tangled with worldly business as they are. The great things of the world are ministered by them; neither do the lay-people any great thing, but at their assignment.

‘If the scripture were in the mother tongue,’ they will say, ‘then would the lay-people understand it, every man after his own ways.’...Are ye not abominable schoolmasters, in that ye take so great wages, if ye will not teach?

If ye would teach, how could ye do it so well, and with so great profit, as when the lay-people have the scripture before them in their mother tongue? For then should they see, by the order of the text, whether thou jugglest or not: and then would they believe it, because it is the scripture of God, though thy living be never so abominable.

Where now, because your living and your preaching are so contrary, and because they grope out in every sermon your open and manifest lies, and smell your unsatiable covetousness, they believe you not when you preach truth...

...If they will not let the lay-man have the word of God in his mother tongue, yet let the priests have it; which for a great part of them do understand no Latin at all, but sing, and say, and patter all day, with the lips only, that which the heart understandeth not.

Christ commandeth to search the scriptures. John 5. Though that miracles bare record unto his doctrine, yet desired he no faith to be given either to his doctrine, or to his miracles, without record of the scripture.

When Paul preached, Acts 17 the other searched the scriptures daily, whether they were as he alleged them. Why shall not I likewise see, whether it be the scripture that thou allegest? Yea, why shall I not see the scripture, and the circumstances, and what goeth before and after; that I may know whether thine interpretation be the right sense, or whether thou jugglest, and drawest the scripture violently unto thy carnal and fleshly purpose; or whether thou be about to teach me, or to deceive me?...

...The sermons which thou readest in the Acts of the apostles, and all that the apostles preached, were no doubt preached in the mother tongue. Why then might they not be written in the mother tongue? As, if one of us preach a good sermon, why may it not be written?

Saint Jerome also translated the bible into his mother tongue: why may not we also? They will say it cannot be translated into our tongue, it is so rude. It is not so rude as they are false liars. For the Greek tongue agrees more with the English than with the Latin. And the properties of the Hebrew tongue agrees a thousand times more with the English than with the Latin...

...What is the cause that we damn some of Origen’s works, and allow some? How know we that some is heresy and some not? By the scripture, I trow. How know we that St Augustine (which is the best, or one of the best, that ever wrote upon the scripture) wrote many things amiss at the beginning, as many other doctors do? Verily, by the scriptures; as he himself well perceived afterward, when he looked more diligently upon them, and revoked many things again. He wrote of many things which he understood not when he was newly converted, ere he had thoroughly seen the scriptures; and followed the opinions of Plato, and the common persuasions of man’s wisdom that were then famous.

They will say yet more shamefully, that no man can understand the scriptures without philosophy. A man must be first well seen in Aristotle, ere he can understand the scripture, say they...”

There were many reasons the Catholic Church opposed allowing laymen to read the scripture in their own tongue, and it requires an amazing rejection of history to claim otherwise. Far too many men died for translating and distributing scripture (oh wait, they were killed by governments, not the pure and blameless Catholic Church). They were willing to risk their lives because they believed that the Word of God was meant for men, and was not meant to be locked up and hidden.

What Schaff wrote lies at the feet of the Roman Catholic Church, which opposed commoners reading scripture because the more one reads the scriptures, the less one will follow Catholicism.

If scripture supported Catholic belief, the Catholic Church would have SOUGHT ways to publish it, instead of burning it and burning those who translated it.

It is a pity the Catholic Church rejected the teaching of St Peter:

“And we have the prophetic word more fully confirmed, to which you will do well to pay attention as to a lamp shining in a dark place, until the day dawns and the morning star rises in your hearts, knowing this first of all, that no prophecy of Scripture comes from someone’s own interpretation. For no prophecy was ever produced by the will of man, but men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit.”