The said proponents of his philosophy were agents of the Church.
Most, but not all.
At any rate, here we see that the Church fully supported science, and Galieo had many friends in the church. Were it not for the support of the church, perhaps the Heliocentric Revolution would have happened later in history. Here we see a few stubborn clerics were unwilling to yield to scientific knowledge out of ignorance and fear, much as dogmatic evolutionists cling to their theory for the same reasons.