Cardinal Bellarmine as a delegate had to deal with the perennial problem of apparent ambiguity in Scripture. Here's Matt Steele's survey of the Council of Trent. With Betsy Ward's comments on the Church's reactions. Most Christian sects have moved away from this issue, though some still hold to a geocentric view of the universe.
Literalism survives today in the primarily in the fundamentalist assault on evolutionary biology.
Check out Darwin . To explore Galileo's assertion that faith can never contradict reason and the Pope on Galileo, go here .