It was the science which Galileo was forced to recant, even if it was the mistake of representing the Pope's views as foolish that triggered the trial.

As for claiming the Church Fathers as YECs, that is projecting a modern concept back where it does not belong. Not to say that they did not believe in a biblical timescale (though at one time, as he worked through Genesis several times, Augustine believed himself to be in the sixth millenium), but that they did not believe in it in the face of evidence to the contrary. The alternatives to the biblical account were the theogonies of the Greeks, the Egyptians, the Babylonians or even the Hindus, and others which were manifestly lacking in rationality. Augustine was concerned with the dualist ideas of the Manichaeans, not the evidence of science. The age of the world was not as important as the author. We can't know what any of them would say about the modern arguments, or the modern uses their works might be put to (and I am not alone in using that particular passage).

We might hazard a guess that they would want to direct us to more important issues. And that was in that passage, quite clearly.

Penny