Actually with respect to the Galileo Affair, it was indeed within the Church's competency to judge because the topic touched upon Sacred Scripture and the Church Fathers directly. And the Church was right and Galileo was wrong. Science cannot prove the Earth is moving through space. Every experiment ended up telling them that the Earth was not moving. So the establishment, unwilling to admit the Holy Inquisition and 16th Century Church were right, fled behind Relativity which only ended up saying that one could not tell the difference. And now Relativity continues to be untenable and only creates more nonsense. None of Galileo's arguments are even entertained seriously any more even within establishment science which continues to try and foist more nonsense upon us like the ClimateGate Scandal. The Church of Galileo's time would not have fallen for this nonsense precisely because they stood by Tradition and knew what they were talking about. The Churchmen of today abandon Tradition and kiss the feet of heretical science and its adherents who don't possess a shred of credibility.