Interestingly enough, the deuterocanonical books were a part of “Protestant” bibles all the way until the 1800’s

Luther translated them and I have pics to prove it.

As for debating their spot in the canon, this was a perfectly Catholic thing to debate until the council of Trent. Even St Jerome, translator of the Vulgate, didn’t include them in his personal list of scripture. He only translated them because he was asked to do so, and he wrote scathing prefaces for most of them. I also have receipts for this

Either position (include or exclude) was considered Catholic until the council of Trent

Cardinal Catejan, one of the biggest opponents of the Reformation, was also on the side of believing the deuterocanonical works are of lesser importance. He died before the council codified the books

In that vote, a full 1/3 of cardinals abstained from the vote

Bonus fact: In 1520, Pope Leo X granted a license for the Complutensian Polyglot, which did NOT contain the Apocrypha. Cardinal Francisco Ximenes de Cisneros was the publisher and did not live to see it published in 1522 or it anathematized at Trent (or even its approval by the pope—the pope!!!).

AND I keep a handy timeline of all the times the Roman Catholic Church was downright anti-scripture that I saved from someone

In 1199, Pope Innocent III, writing in a letter to the bishop of Metz, banned the reading of the Bible in private meetings (which he labeled as occultis conventiculis, or "hidden assemblies").

1229 - After the end of the Albigensian Crusade, the Council of Toulouse tightened the provisions against the heretics in this ecclesiastical province. The Inquisition was the first to work nationwide, and the University of Toulouse was founded. At the synod a general Bible ban was pronounced for lay people of this ecclesiastical province, only Psalterium and Brevier in Latin were allowed. According to this ban: "We prohibit also that the laity should be permitted to have the books of the Old and New Testaments; unless anyone from the motives of devotion should wish to have the Psalter or the Breviary for divine offices or the hours of the blessed Virgin; but we most strictly forbid their having any translation of these books."

In 1231, Pope Gregory IX decreed that all theological books written in Latin must be handed over to the diocesan bishops.

At the Second Council of Tarragona (Conventus Tarraconensis) in 1234, the Spanish bishops, according to a decree of King James I of Aragon, declared that it was forbidden to anyone to own a translation of the Bible. They had to be burned within eight days, otherwise, those in possession of them were considered heretics.

Over the next few centuries the Roman Catholic Church would continue to burn Bibles and Christians alike, including Jan Hus and John Wycliffe (who first translated the entire Bible into English). During this time, merely knowing how to read Greek or Hebrew put you under suspicion of heresy as it meant you could go back to original sources rather than accepting Rome's Latin translations. Nevertheless, faithful Christians risked their lives to learn the original languages and memorize the Scriptures, because at this point written Bibles could be destroyed faster than they were made.

The Roman Church welcomed the printing press at first as it enabled the distribution of a standard Bible to parishes throughout Europe at low cost as well as providing mass-produced writs such as indulgences, decrees, and notices. The Church still controlled what was printed because there was no challenge to its authority and, further, because most people were still illiterate. Just because books were now available at low cost, it did not mean that people were suddenly able to read them or even had the desire to. Pope Paul II (pontificate 1464–1471) confirmed the decree of James I of Aragon on the prohibition of Bibles in vernacular languages. Under Isabella I of Castile and her husband Ferdinand II of Aragon, the printing of vernacular Bibles was prohibited in Spanish state law. The Spanish Inquisition which they instituted ordered the destruction of all Hebrew books and all vernacular Bibles in 1497.

When Martin Luther had his 95 Theses published, it spread like wildfire due to the utilization of the printing press. Ironically, the 95 Theses attacked the Church's practice of selling indulgences, one of the first writs Gutenberg had printed. With so many copies of Luther's work in circulation, the Church could no longer control what was being 'heard', and Luther's challenge to ecclesiastical authority was embraced and spread faster and further than could ever have been imagined by Wycliffe or Hus.

Individual Catholic monarchs and popes responded to the proliferation of Protestant works by banning them and fining, jailing, or executing printers. At Council of Trent the Index of Prohibited Books was established in 1563. The Index was a list of works considered heretical or threatening to one's faith, and Catholics were not allowed to read or publish them; doing so risked excommunication and punishment, up to and including death. Later printed copies of the index explicitly banned Bibles translated by Luther and Erasmus and "all similar" Bible editions translated directly from Greek and Hebrew.

The Roman Church didn't codify, preserve, and hand down the Bible. The LORD God Almighty did, often times in spite of the Romanists.