Galileo and Copernicus had major problems with religious courts in their days; and the inquisition made life tough for many more like them -- people that were questioning "universal truths" promulgated by religious types.
Same things going on today in the Islamic world, and it's my hope that this century does not return the human race to anything resembling those "good old days."
Know what? Those religious types were wrong about the solar system. This clearly demonstrates that a truth does not bend to what man says, in order to maintain otherwise.
Did you also know that two Cardinals were funding Copernicus' (heliocentric) astronomical research? What the Church court objected to was teaching heliocentricity as dogma. At the time, heliocentricity was a scientific theory. It's also my understanding that Galileo in reality did not provide adequate scientific evidence to defend his theory, although I'm not familiar with the specifics.