A long, detailed, and nuanced discussion of the affair between Galileo and the Church may be found here. Part of the interest is in the exposure of some of the "mythology" that surround this issue. Such as this:

According to one of these readings, Galileo knew the Earth to go round the Sun, as Copernicus had written, rather than the converse as implied in several Biblical passages. The Church would not allow science to disprove the revealed truth of Scripture, however, and hence threw Galileo to the Inquisition where he was forced under threat of torture to disclaim this opinion and never speak of it again. He was then imprisoned under house arrest for the remainder of his life, a clear example of the conflict between scientific investigation of the world around us and the presumed infallible authority of the Bible.

Which is a story often cited as the truth of history.