Actually, Galileo's mistake was that he portrayed the Pope as the Village Idiot.
Both Galileo and Pope Urban VIII shared St. Augustine's and the Catholic's Church present view that the Bible was written to guide man in regards to how to get to Heaven and not how the heavenly bodies go and was therefore not a literal scientific document. As you may note, the Catholic Church has no dog in the Darwinism vs. Creationism fight.
Pope Urban VIII specifically asked Galileo to write a book outlining the scientific pros and cons of the competing theories. If it had been a matter of pure religious dogma, the matter would simply have been settled by Papal decree.
Urban VIII had his personal opinion on the scientific controversy and asked Galileo to include it in the arguments of the book.
The book, however, was written, not as a straightforward and unbiased scientific treatise, but as a fictional dialog between proponents of each theory.
The Village Idiot in the dialog of the book was "Simplicius" which literally translates to "Simpleton".
Galileo screwed the pooch not so much by assigning Simplicius one side of the argument or the other but by putting Pope Urban VIII's personal opinion regarding the scientific controversy into the mouth of Simplicius.
Pope Urban VIII thus found himself publicly ridiculed and humiliated and Galileo found himself in deep kimchee.
That’s a very interesting take - makes me want to go read up some more - thanks.
Good point. Also, I am sick of mass-media ignorati getting this wrong: Galileo was not the originator of the theory that the earth revolves around the sun. He did invent the telescope, and made many discoveries about the nature of other planets. He is also considered the father of the science of mechanics. He was often wrong, especially about astronomy—as everyone was, since it was a time of great scientific ferment and creativity. Besides being brilliant, Galileo was a narcissistic self-promoter and a clueless hothead.
The originator of the heliocentric theory was Copernicus. That would be Father Copernicus—a Catholic priest who published his hypothesis only at the insistence of his clerical superiors. (The Church was not exactly on the sidelines of the scientific revolution.)
The most vitriolic enemies of the heliocentric theory at the time were Protestant. For example, Martin Luther considered it a blasphemy against the Bible, since the Bible in numerous passages speaks of the sun "rising." In contrast, Catholic theology has never required adherents to take such details of wording literally, since imagery is considered integral to human communication.
Personally, I think the Anglicans are currently led by publicity hounds, and that's why we're hearing about this.