I have always wondered why Catholics don't have a bible study program like we do in Protestant Churches.

This is from the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops:

[quote]Scripture always has played an important role in the prayer life of the Catholic Church and its members. For the ordinary Catholic in earlier centuries, exposure to Scripture was passive. They heard it read aloud or prayed aloud but did not read it themselves. One simple reason: Centuries ago the average person could not read or afford a book. Popular reading and ownership of books began to flourish only after the invention of the printing press.

Once the printing press was invented, the most commonly printed book was the Bible, but this still did not make Bible-reading a Catholic’s common practice. Up until the mid-twentieth Century, the custom of reading the Bible and interpreting it for oneself was a hallmark of the Protestant churches springing up in Europe after the Reformation. Protestants rejected the authority of the Pope and of the Church and showed it by saying people could read and interpret the Bible for themselves. Catholics meanwhile were discouraged from reading Scripture. [/quote]
...

You would think after the Printing Press was invented, the Catholic Church would be gleaming with joy. They were not happy about the printing press. They wanted to keep the bible in Latin and in the confinement of the church, so no one but clergymen could read it.

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Graylight · 51-55, F

https://ascensionpress.com/pages/bible-studies
Literally a whole site dedicated to Catholic Bible study resources and material.

https://www.usccb.org/offices/new-american-bible/study-materials
From the US Conference of Catholic Bishops

Here are two major points that are correct: Bibles before the Reformation were typically in Latin, and most ordinary people didn’t have access to Bibles. There are obvious reasons for this. First, for most of the history prior to the Reformation, the written language for /virtually [i]everything [/i]was Latin, and reading and writing in Latin was taught in school. For much of that time, it was also the language commonly spoken by ordinary people.

In the ancient world, it wasn’t unusual to speak one language, and write in another. By the fourth century, the standard written language in the West was Latin. This was also the language that most Westerners spoke. To respond to this shift, Pope Damasus ordered the Bible to be translated from the now-inaccessible Greek into more accessible Latin. As a result, this Bible became known as the Vulgate, because it was designed to reach the “vulgar” (common) people (Catholic Encyclopedia).

In other words, the Bible wasn’t in Latin to be inaccessible, but so that any literate Western European could read it.

Justice4All · 36-40, M

@Graylight

[quote]Literally a whole site dedicated to Catholic Bible study resources and material.
[/quote]

Please allow me to clarify: "Bible study" for Protestants is not just someone deciding to read online resources. Although I agree, using those bible study tools can be insightful. At Protestant churches, we have weekly bible study programs, where members of the congregation come together to read and exegetically discuss biblical passages.

[quote]First, for most of the history prior to the Reformation, the written language for /virtually everything was Latin, and reading and writing in Latin was taught in school. For much of that time, it was also the language commonly spoken by ordinary people.
[/quote]

Latin was the language of the aristocrats, clergymen and other well educated people. That didn't include the vast majority of the population. Ordinary people in most of Europe did not speak Latin during the time of the Reformation, nor was it widely spoken in the 1400s.

The author of the Speculum Vitae (The Mirror of Life), writing late in the fourteenth century, chose to use English and explained why.

I’ll tell you in English

If you’ll stay with me long enough.

I won’t speak or waste Latin,

But I’ll speak English, that people use most,

Since that is your native language

That you have most in use here,

Which each person can understand

Who was born in England.

For that language is most in evidence

Both among the educated and the uneducated.

[b]I believe no-one knows Latin

Unless they’ve taken it at school.[/b]

Some know French and not Latin

Who have frequented the court and lived in it.

And some know a bit of Latin

Who know French very poorly.

Some understand English

Who know neither Latin nor French.

But educated and uneducated, old and young,

All understand the English tongue.