As to whether the Catholic church DIS-courages Bible reading I leave to to Catholics to say what attitude comes to them. The position of the Catholic church as to the relative importance of the Bible as a source of doctrinal authority, however, is quite clear:
“Holy Scripture is therefore not the only theological source of the Revelation made by God to His Church. Side by side with Scripture there is tradition, side by side with the written revelation there is the oral revelation. This granted, it is impossible to be satisfied with the Bible alone for the solution of all dogmatic questions. Such was the first field of controversy between Catholic theologians and the Reformers.”(Catholic Encyclopedia)
I adduced indulgences ONLY in response to the false accusation that the Church discourages Catholics from reading the Bible. The implied argument was that if the Church grants indulgences for an activity she does so because she thinks it's a good activity. Q.E.D.
Then you say that, to judge by the record of some abuses, indulgences are a bad thing.
So I point out (1) that that doesn't touch the argument I was making (it is a change of subject, in other words); and (2) the abuse of a thing doesn't mean the thing abused is bad in itself; and that that generalization is true whatever one thinks of indulgences.
To develop (1) a little. The Catholic Church does not think indulgences are a bad thing. She thinks they are a good thing, and to be desired. So, rightly or wrongly, the grants them to people who study their Bibles. SO it is hard to argue in the light of that that she thinks reading the Bible is bad. And that argument stands whether or not you think indulgences or Bible study or the Catholic Church is a good thing or a bad thing.
Those questions would be ANOTHER argument.
SO I never said that granting indulgences is a bad thing. Consequently I don't get why you ask me:
If granting indulgences is a bad thing how would using them to accomplish a good change them?
I don't think granting indulgences is a bad thing. But even if it IS a bad thing, the Catholic Church's granting indulgences to people who read the Bible shows that the Catholic Church is not discouraging people from reading their Bibles, which was the argument I initially made.
I also was not discussing the place of the Bible in the formation and development of Catholic Doctrine. And I certainly was not disputing the proposition we do not hold to the notion of Sola Scriptura for a number of reasons, of which two are that it seems unscriptural to us as well as unreasonable.
But, of course that, too, is a different topic.
Just once, it would be nice for a non-Catholic who turns out to be shown to have argued for something that is not true would say, "Okay, that makes sense; I was wrong," before changing the subject and acting as though the initial discussion had never taken place.
And one reason that I think that would be nice would be that I could have SOME sense that I might go two or three months without someone else saying that the Catholic Church discourages the reading of the Bible.
The "shoot and move" debate technique lends support to my conjecture that these are not real debates, real conversations and exchanges in which adults develop their thoughts and reach conclusions. And because "shoot and move" leads to illusory triumphs and obfuscation, it gives weight to my recent conjecture that these debates may be more a matter of demonic influence than anything else.
The position of the Catholic church as to the relative importance of the Bible as a source of doctrinal authority, however, is quite clear:
“Holy Scripture is therefore not the only theological source of the Revelation made by God to His Church. Side by side with Scripture there is tradition, side by side with the written revelation there is the oral revelation. This granted, it is impossible to be satisfied with the Bible alone for the solution of all dogmatic questions. Such was the first field of controversy between Catholic theologians and the Reformers.”(Catholic Encyclopedia)
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INDEED.