[meandog]

I believe both were issued apologies... Remember, Copernicus was castigated for heliocentric theory and Galileo for backing him up. Nevertheless, both were devout RCs!

[Mrs. Don-o]

OK, I went back and checked. Copernicus was never censured by officials of the Catholic Church; in fact, he himself was an "official of the Catholic Church" and his book on celestial motion was not published until the very end of his life. In this regard, David C. Lindberg and Ronald L. Numbers (Department of History of Science, U of Wisconsin at Madison) note:

"If Copernicus had any genuine fear of publication, it was the reaction of scientists, not clerics, that worried him. Other churchmen before him — Nicole Oresme (a French bishop) in the fourteenth century and Nicolaus Cusanus (a German cardinal) in the fifteenth — had freely discussed the possible motion of the earth, and there was no reason to suppose that the reappearance of this idea in the sixteenth century would cause a religious stir."

This quote comes from a article dealing in great detail with Copernicus and Galileo and the general polemic around church/science relations. It's good history, well worth a read, posted here:

http://www.asa3.org/ASA/PSCF/1987/PSCF9-87Lindberg.html