That's not why those individuals were persecuted, or not exactly why at any rate. Besides, they have recanted their earlier stance.
I didn't realize that either Copernicus nor Kepler, Catholic monastics or teaching brothers both, were ever persecuted for proposing the heliocentric universe or demonstrating elliptical orbits. In fact, neither were.
Galileo was not persecuted for supporting the theories of Copernicus. He wasn't much persecuted at all UNTIL he began to assert that Copernican theory (which, you will recall, had CIRCULAR, not elliptical orbits) was the highest order of Truth, and that anyone who questioned it was a fool. That, of course, was wrong, and extremely arrogant. Galileo got in trouble because he was arrogant to authority and called them idiots for not accepting the truths he believed in as being of equal - or indeed greater - strength than the religious truths they believed in. They weren't idiots, but they didn't take kindly to either the insults (in service of error, by the way, Galileo was quite wrong about circular orbits, one of the things he INSISTED upon with an unhealthy and condescending vehemence), or to to assertions that Galileo's truths (which is to say, Copernicus' truths, which were not particularly controversial as such). And so they told Galileo to knock it off.
As far as "persecutions" go, Galileo's was exceedingly mild. He was told to stop it. When he didn't, he was warned. Deciding that he really didn't want to be physically punished, he chose instead the option the Church offered, which was a FULL RETIREMENT IN A PAPAL CHATEAU. Not exactly a dank prison cell with fire and sword, I'm afraid.
Galileo's problem wasn't what he taught, it was his attitude that the content of what he taught overthrew all of the authority of the teachings of the Church and his great perspicacity in looking through a telescope and seeing things gave him the right to be personally insulting, in public, to princes temporal and even the Pope. His polemics amounted to catcalls at times, and the Pope didn't take kindly to catcalls.
Bottom line: Galileo wasn't persecuted because he said the world revolved around the sun. It was actually the monk Copernicus who said that, before Galileo, and his work was well received. And it was another Catholic, Kepler, who demonstrated that the orbits were elliptical, and he was not locked in a dungeon and in fact had the patronage of various princes of the Church. Galileo got himself in trouble because he thought that his learning and intelligence exempted him from the normal rules of deference and respect in a hierarchical, aristocratic society. He thought that because he had good math and a telescope he could insult the Pope to his face in a public audience, and could harangue anybody who didn't accept what he, Galileo, taught as THE highest truth.
Had he had a better character, there's no particular reason to believe that Galileo would have gotten in trouble at all. As it is, he didn't get very much in trouble: forced into retirement in a castle of his own - really terrible persecution, that. Especially since the supreme "truths" that Galileo harangued people they had to accept as the HIGHEST truths (above revelation) were actually wrong. Galileo committed himself to the circular orbit, and called anybody who didn't accept it an idiot.
Galileo was wrong.