“No one can say that the Catholic Church “discourages Bible reading” after reading these stats. “
It IS nice to see the improvement following Vatican 2, and it had already improved before then. However, at the time of the Reformation, the Bishop of Gloucester surveyed 311 deacons, archdeacons and priests, and found that 168 were unable to repeat the 10 Commandments, 31 didn’t know where the 10 Commandments came from, and 40 could neither repeat the Lord’s Prayer nor say who the author of the Prayer was!
That is worth remembering when we debate things like “Reformation Day”. The Reformers not only started new congregations (the word typically translated church in the NT), but the competition has moved the Catholic Church in the right direction...
I don't think anyone would say that at the time of the Reformation Luther was suffering from poor eyesight when viewing the state (human) of the Catholic Church. As far as Bible reading is concerned it's important to remember the the printing press had just recently been invented, so I think we could say that the beginning so to speak of more folks studying Scripture began to take root during Reformation times.