The Best Catholic Bible Apps (and Why Your Bible Needs 73 Books)

Most Bible apps in the App Store are Protestant Bibles. That matters more than it sounds. A Catholic Bible has 73 books. The King James, NIV, NKJV and most other popular translations have 66, because they leave out seven books of the Old Testament that the Church has always read as Scripture: Tobit, Judith, 1 and 2 Maccabees, Wisdom, Sirach and Baruch, along with parts of Esther and Daniel.

So if you have ever gone looking for a Mass reading from Sirach or Wisdom in your Bible app and could not find it, that is why. These are the Catholic Bible apps we recommend.

Best for reading the whole Bible
Ascension Publishing Group
Free, with audio included; premium $8.99 a month or $59.99 a year
★ 4.9 from 91,776 ratings (Nov 2026)

Home of the Bible in a Year podcast. The Bible reading plan and the podcast sit side by side, so you can listen and read along. A strong first choice if you want a Catholic Bible you will actually open every day.

Best for going deeper
AD30 Inc.
Free
★ 4.9 from 5,099 ratings (Nov 2026)

Every verse comes with commentary from the Church Fathers. When a passage leaves you with a question, this is where you find how the early Church read it.

Best for building a habit
SacredSoft Apps LLC
Free; Plus $6.99 a month or $49.99 a year

Pairs daily Bible reading with the Catechism, so what you read in Scripture connects to what the Church teaches.

Best New American Bible (NABRE)
Greg Fairbrother
$2.99
★ 3.3 from 87 ratings (Nov 2026)

The NABRE is the Catholic translation used for the Mass readings in the United States, so the passages you read here match what you hear on Sunday.

Best audio Bible
WGQM Partners
Free; full library $6.99
★ 2.9 from 36 ratings (Nov 2026)

The Douay-Rheims read aloud. The Douay-Rheims is the classic English Catholic translation, and hearing it is a different experience from reading it.

Best for daily Gospel reflections
Pandas of Caribbean Limited
Free with ads; ad-free lifetime $19.99
★ 4.9 from 14,709 ratings (Nov 2026)
CatholicApps.com Score 3.6/5

Oremus has picked up more than 14,000 ratings in about two years, and you can see why: you open it each morning to the Gospel with a reflection beside it. Our score sits well below its store rating for two reasons. The commentary is generated by AI, so treat it as a starting point and not the last word, and the developer reports tracking you across other apps. If you want Scripture with no software in between, start higher on this list.

Best for serious study
Faithlife Corporation
Free; paid books and resources
★ 4.8 from 3,964 ratings (Nov 2026)

Verbum is a Catholic Bible study library: commentaries, the Catechism and Church documents linked to the text. More than most people need, and exactly what students and catechists want.

Best for more than one language
Chris Leandro Kwok De Los Santos
Free; premium $5.99 a month or $49.99 a year
★ 5.0 from 9 ratings (Nov 2026)

Bible, Rosary and the saints in seven languages, useful for bilingual families and parishes.

• Spanish: La Santa Biblia Católica
• French (Crampon translation): La Bible Catholique Audio Catholic Bible in French
• Vietnamese: Catholic Vietnamese Holy Bible
• Chinese and English: Catholic Chinese English Bible

Any complete Catholic translation is a good choice. The New American Bible, Revised Edition (NABRE) is used for the Mass readings in the United States. The Revised Standard Version, Catholic Edition (RSV-CE and RSV-2CE) is a favourite for study and prayer. The Douay-Rheims is the traditional English Catholic Bible. The Jerusalem Bible and New Jerusalem Bible are Catholic translations known for their readable English.

• Look for the words “Catholic” and the name of a Catholic translation in the description.
• Open the list of books and look for Tobit, Judith, Wisdom and Sirach. If they are missing, it is not a Catholic Bible.
• Be careful with apps that only name the King James, NIV, NKJV, ESV or NLT. Those are Protestant translations.

Looking for something more playful for the kids? Our Kids & family section includes Bible games and colouring apps. Most of those are Christian rather than specifically Catholic, and we label them that way.