Check out this brief interview with Professor Lindberg (history of science prof at Wisconsin-Madison) Did Martin Luther Get Galileo in Trouble?
How did the church respond to Galileo’s theory?
There was a committee established called the Holy Office, which had the responsibility to determine the truth in matters of faith. Charges were leveled against Galileo, and so the heliocentric question came before them.
We don’t know much about what went on in their considerations. But it’s important to look at the whole picture. And one part of that picture is that the scientific community is overwhelmingly opposed to Galileo. That is, the evidence that Galileo has is not particularly powerful. It’s not overpowering. He was looked on as a crackpot by lots of scientists.
If we combine this picture with the authority of the Catholic Church to interpret the Bible—and their new attention to literal interpretation—it’s just clear what the answer is going to be. They’re not going to violate their own hermeneutic exegetical standards in order to adopt this crackpot minority opinion of the scientific community.
So then he goes before a papal court. It wasn’t his science that was on trial, though. What was he tried for?
Obedience was the only issue in the trial. And he was guilty. Everybody could tell he was guilty because Galileo doesn’t just discuss the pros and cons of the theory, he just advocates all the way. It was a blunder on Galileo’s part.
Galileo then recants. Why?
He had two choices. There was the threat of imprisonment or he could recant. Everybody knew it was a formality, so he didn’t cost his cause anything to recant.
How did the theory of the sun as the center of the universe finally get accepted by the church?
Once Newton’s theory of gravitation came along, you had overwhelming arguments in favor of heliocentrism. The church says, “Okay, now we’ve got proof, so now we will reinterpret the Bible.”
By the end of the 17th century, the church was on board, though Copernicus’s book stayed on the index of prohibited books until 1835. This geocentric model remained an albatross around the Catholic Church’s neck.
Interesting stuff.