He wasn't a heretic, although he did wait until he was on his deathbed to release his book for fear of what the Church would do to him. But my point is that when it comes to science, the Church says one thing, and then later it might very well say the opposite thing. When they say that a particular branch of science is inconsistent with their faith, you've gotta remember that it's just their current interpretation of the Bible. In a few years, their interpretation might change, and then they'll say that it's not inconsistent. It's happened many times before. It happened with the notion that the Earth is the center of the universe. But that is just one example.
The church cannot be seriously concerned with science, since it is the product of the fallible mind of man. The church seeks the mind of God.