No Da Vinci Code: The Best-Selling Book No One Wants To Read

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Bible 'Not a Best Read'

from News 24

Vatican City - With an estimated five billion copies sold in more than 2,000 languages worldwide, the Bible is considered the ultimate best-seller. But is it also the best read?

Apparently not, according to a new survey commissioned by an Italian Christian association and carried out in three Catholic countries: Italy, France and Spain.

The survey's results were presented on Thursday at the Vatican, and suggest that only three percent of practising Catholics actually read the Scripture on a daily basis while 80% of them only hear extracts from the Bible during Sunday Mass.

Bishop Vincenzo Paglia, head of the Catholic Bible Federation, also notes that there is widespread ignorance about the so-called "Good Book."

For instance, the survey found that 40% of those polled believed Saint Paul had written a Gospel while 26% thought Saint Peter was one of the Evangelists - the presumed authors of the Gospels are in fact Matthew, Mark, Luke and John.

Bishop Paglia also expressed concern about a survey finding suggesting that the majority of practising Catholics still believe the Bible to be a book which should be confined to the clergy rather than one they should make their own.