The Roman church was wrong on this and they should have known better, because if they would have read the bible more carefully they would have found the correct answer:
Isaiah 40:22 (discussing the creation of the earth): It is He who sits above the circle of the earth.
So don’t play this off as the bible being wrong, it was the fact that church leaders at that time didn’t know their bible as well as they should have.
Copernicus: “After his father’s death, he was raised by his mother’s brother, a bishop in the Catholic Church. Copernicus studied mathematics and astronomy at the University of Krakow. Through his uncle’s influence Copernicus was appointed a canon (church official) of the Catholic Church. He used the income from the position to help pay for additional studies”
dude, don’t blame the Catholics for the flat-earthers.
http://starchild.gsfc.nasa.gov/docs/StarChild/whos_who_level2/copernicus.html