I did not grow up Catholic but I've interviewed dozens
of older Catholics, and ex Catholics, including those
who now go to Evangelical Churches, to try to gain an
understanding of the charge that Catholics weren't
allowed to read their Bibles in the 1930's - 1970's.
It is true that earlier in this century, in some Catholic
circles, people were not encouraged to read their
Bibles. This discouragement was a mistake. The Church
does not claim that these types of mistakes have not
been made. Catholics believe that although the teaching
of the Church is "infallible" on matters of doctrine, the
Church is not "indefectible." Sometimes God chooses
people who fall. He has done that since the beginning of
the Church. (i.e., Judas).
It was never forbidden to read the Bible. But some
priests were worried that congregations would come up
with dozens of conflicting interpretations of Scripture.
These priests knew of over 300 Protestant
denominations who had distinct beliefs about the
interpretation of Scripture. Many of these
interpretations conflicted with each other yet every one
of them claimed divine inspiration. As a whole, neither
Catholics or Evangelicals are into relativism (which says
there are many truths). So we have to conclude that the
vast majority of conflicting Evangelical biblical
interpretations are incorrect since only one can be true.
(Perhaps this is a powerful argument against Sola
Scriptura - Bible alone.) Some priests saw this divisional
process in Protestant circles and felt it was a danger.

We must be careful not to project modern, American sensibilities (in regard to freedom and justice) into the context of medieval history. In the Middle Ages and before 1776, there was simply no such thing as separation of Church and State ---not in Catholic countries OR in Protestant countries. If we "burned people for reading the Bible," then the Protestants burned people for praying in Latin or hearing the Catholic Mass (something they unquestionably did in England, Geneva, and Scandinavia, etc.). At this time in history, heresy was also a secular crime; and the powers of a particular country treated it as such ... Despite the "spin" that some Evangelicals put on the Catholic position, the Catholic Church was never opposed people reading the Bible. What it opposed was people reading interpretations the Bible apart from the teaching authority of the Church, which would lead to the kinds of problems we have today with 30,000 denominations interpreting Scripture differently. The Bible itself warns against this. (2 Peter 1:20). With the invention of printing, there was a communications explosion, and one suddenly saw lots of people making very poor and heretical translations of the Bible and popularizing them throughout Christendom...The Church tried to stop this.

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I am not aware of a time when Catholics were discouraged from reading the bible. Can you provide evidence of that claim?

I know that the Catholic Church encourages Catholics to read the Bible with the guidance/mind of the Church.

Secondly, it's obvious that the Protestant doctrine of Sola Scriptura is a huge error.

That's why their "Churches" are teaching their congregation to eat snakes, drink petrol and perform mouth-action on their "pastors" to such "anointed milk."

...and these protestants are deriving these doctrines from their "Holy Spirit" inspired interpretations.