Before Galileo, all Christendom accepted the church’s view that man and his works stood at the center of the universe, on a fixed earth, and with The Dark Age, had destroyed the memory of ancient astronomers. When Copernicus published his book, stating that the earth moves around the sun, Christian authorities said such information was blasphemous and heretical. When The Roman church investigated Copernicus’ theory by consulting the Scriptures, they placed his book on the Index of Prohibited Books; where it remained until 1835. When Galileo published his Dialogue, in 1632, with overwhelming proof of the Copernican theory, a huge opposition arose from the church, and he was arrested and threatened with torture. This set the pattern for three centuries of ecclesiastical condemnation of each new discovery because almost all-scientific knowledge was found to be contrary to Holy Writ. The Pope forbade the burial of Galileo’s’ remains in his family tomb, he was buried without ceremony, monument or epitaph.

-- Walker, Barbara G., The Women’s Encyclopedia of Myths and Secrets, HarperCollins, San Francisco, 1983. Pages 333-336.