Pope Urban VI asked some very reasonable questions about the treatment of tides in manuscript of Dialogue. Galileo told him he would clear it up in the print edition. Galileo put the Pope's question in the mouth of the doltish character Simplico, only to have them swatted aside dismissively by the the wise interlocutor, Salvati. It is embarassment to Galileo's supporters that he exhibits absolutely no understanding of the mechanism of tides, the Pope's question was reasonable, Galileo's answer was not.
Galileo was something of a hot head and a contraversalist. When his enemies accused him of heresy he might have counted on support from the Pope, but the Pope let the trial go on.
A further embarassment is that Galileo did not understand the details of either Copernican nor Ptolemaic astronomy. As Owen Gingerich points out ("The Eye of God" - read it) Copernican astronomy does not represent any improvement over Ptolemaic as a scientific theory. In a sense it is somewhat retrograde: Its appeal lies in the fact that Copernicus could obey the Aristolean dictum that planetary motion must be resolved into uniform circular motions. Copernicus achieved this, but only at a cost of greater complexity and, at best, no more accuracy.
Koestler ("The Sleepwalkers") thinks that heliocentricist in the Vatican (and he believes Jesuits were overwhelmingly heliocentricist) were alarmed by Galileo's hamfisted and half cocked advocacy of heliocentricism. Sort of like the way a pro-lifer might be alarmed by the pronouncements of Rep. Akins.
I read your words. They are one sided. The angelic church and the hot headed ignorant Galileo. Hmmmm. The facts are Galileo was right. The church was wrong. Those are the facts and no matter how you/church wish to manipulate them, they remain. It is/was immoral what the church did to that man. The pope did not show the mercy, love or patience of Christ. He showed what he truly was and that was a prideful spiteful man.
Wow! With so much knowledge packed into one post, I can’t wait to see the reply from the other poster.
Thank you for a well researched and presented answer.