"the bible literalism movement that was threatening the Church at the time"?

So, I was looking up a thread on Catholic Answers* with the Negative Parallax issue (without the red herring on 63 Ophiuchi being a great example) and came across a subdiscussion on the Galileo case.

Here is one comment*, not by the two geocentrics:

Was there a possibility, however remote... that he was thrown under the bus because of the bible literalism movement that was threatening the Church at the time?

Timing is everything isn't it?

I suppose by "he" the one meant is Galileo.

What I am less clear about is what exactly is "the bible literalism movement that was threatening the Church at the time"?

Protestantism does NOT qualify, since it is only in the last 50 or 100 years that a large section of Protestants stand out as more believing in certain Bible passages taken literally than comparably large sections of Catholics.

Yes, Protestantism was threatening the Church, but not specifically as a "Bible literalism" movement. It was a "Bible only" movement, and that in more than one way "in name only". But it was not an "all of the Bible, and that literally" movement.

Fundamentalism is late in Protestantism, and what it has of "all of the Bible, and that literally" is in and of itself approaching it to Catholicism.

Protestantism when it started was more of a pragmatist movement. "Fasting every Lent is irksome ... I can't find Lent in the Bible, so I won't fast" is a good summing up of the Reformation. Among today's Pentecostals and Foursquare, you will find pastors saying they fasted nine days while praying to the Holy Spirit, because they found that in the Bible - but you will not find such claims among the Reformers.

The movement that was really threatening the Church back then (still so during 30 Years War in Germany and 80 Years War dividing the Netherlands into two), was not very similar to modern Fundamentalism. And therefore I cannot take that movement as being inimical to Catholicism in all its aspects, just because they happen to hanker back to the Anti-Catholic days as well as to Bible believing ones.**

Hans Georg Lundahl
Nanterre UL
St Stephen of Hungary
2-IX-2015

* Linking to page 6:

Re: Negative Stellar Parallax - Proof of Geocentrism and a smaller universe, p. 6
http://forums.catholic.com/showthread.php?t=462165&page=6

What I quoted was #90, last comment on the page.