"Oh Those Catholic Bible Burners!"

"Yes, Virginia, Catholics did burn bibles and forbid the common folk from reading them by decree of the Eeeeeevil Councils of the Catholic Church."
Have you heard that legend? I have, and as a matter of fact it is not legend but absolutely true. At the time these decrees of the Church were made, there were many heretics and cults as there still are today. The Albigensians, in particular, were taking Scripture and twisting it to justify fornication and deny the sacrament of marriage. (This incidentally, is one of the heretical cults that some sects use as evidence that "Bible Christians" always existed hidden but persecuted by the Catholic Church) The Church restricted the reading of the Bible until this heresy was rooted out. For as Peter says "the unstable and ignorant distort Scripture to their own destruction."
The Catholic Church burned Bibles. Which Bible is the question? Did they burn all Bibles? You have to wonder if they hated Scripture so much, why is almost 25% of the time spent in Mass Scripture reading? The Church initiated the collection and burning of Bibles that contained anti-Catholic commentary and changes of translation to favor a heretical viewpoint.
Tyndale and Wycliff wrote their own commentary along the pages of Holy Scripture and it was decidely anti-Catholic. They weren't the first to have translated the Bible into English either , there had been portions of translations going back to the 7th Century. Venerable Bede translated the gospel of John (Caedmon's translation was a paraphrase of selected stories of the Bible in Anglo-Saxon, early english))
The Church burned the Bibles that contained error and heretical commentary against the papacy and clerics. After the Council of Trent, the Church again decreeeeed that Bibles needed to be handed over to the authorities. This has such a Farenheit 451 feel to it! Remember though, the historical context at the time. Martin Luther had just ignited a revolution that led to the death of thousands of people throughout Germany. He himself removed 7 books from the Old Testament and actually added the word "alone" to Romans after the word 'faith" in his translation. Doesn't that mean he violated the scripture admonition that warns us "that whoever adds to the words or takes away from the words of this book...." in Revelation?
So it is very appropriate for the Catholic Church, guardian of Truth, to confiscate and burn faulty and heretical translations to preserve the faithful from error. No dark medieval conspiracies here, just setting the story straight in the context of history.

As an afterthought: If you were to find a "New World Translation"(Translation of the Jehovah Witnesses sect) that changes the Gospel of John's words to deny Trinitarian doctrine, would you give it to your kids to read? I doubt it, and in the same spirit of maternal love and concern for her children, the Catholic Church removed heretical versions of the Bible from general circulation. This was another example of one of the "Key" operations of the Church. Using the authority given to Peter to bind, loose and.......forgive me if I use the Tiber Jumper Amplified Version here; Burn Bad Bibles!