My understanding is that INQ didn't exactly condemn heliocentrism( any more than geocentrism)-- it just rejected Galileo's demand that it be accepted as Dogma. There was( in 1616) only the slightest of proof( Galileo's discovery of Jupiters Moons) for the idea that Earth revs around Sun. Galileo's mistake was presuming S fixed and center of U-- articles 2 & 3 of Copernicanism
Copernicus spoke hypothetically.....
It doesn't matter as science has now shown that both E & S are in motion.... :detective:
Heliocentrism was condemned because it is contrary to scripture. Here's a short history of the backstory showing people tried to lie about the whole Galileo Affair. From the book:
The Pontifical Decrees Against the Doctrine of The Earth’s Movement and the Ultramontane Defence of ThemThe Pontifical Decrees Against the Doctrine of The Earth’s Movement and the Ultramontane Defence of Them By Rev. William W. Roberts (1885) Introductory commentary by a Catholic layman in 2002 1543 Nicolaus Copernicus published De Revolutionibus Orbium Cœlestium (On the Revolutions of Spheres). 1534-1549 Reign of Pope Paul III, who was quite aware of Fr. Copernicus’ work. The two were actually friends. 1605-1621 Reign of Pope Paul V, who issued a 1616 decree condemning pro-heliocentricity work of Galileo Galilei. 1623-1644 Reign of Pope Urban VIII, who issued a 2nd decree [1633] condemning Copernicanism. 1655-1657 Reign of Pope Alexander VII, who issued a Bull [1664] reinforcing that Copernicanism was heretical. 1740-1758 Reign of Pope Benedict XIV, who removed the Copernican books from the Index in 1740. 1846-1878 Reign of Pope Pius IX, who called Vatican Council [1869-70] wherein Papal Infallibility was defined. In 1870 the Vatican Council promulgated the dogma of Papal Infallibility. Until then, the infallibility of the Catholic Church’s teachings had never been defined explicitly although accepted by the Fathers throughout its history. This definition brought criticism from those outside the Church and even from some within. There were at least three reasons for this: (1) It decreed that God Himself dictated the teachings of the Catholic Church, a notion that other religions were prone to deny; (2) some did not want to elevate the papacy to an infallible level, even when declaring matters of faith and morals; (3) some believed the Church had erred on previous occasions and that therefore the definition was erroneous. It is the third reason with which this book of Fr Roberts concerns itself. In the wake of the promulgation of the Papal Infallibility dogma, a spate of books by both Protestants & Catholics were published, the latter supposedly listing the occasions where this infallibility had proven to be null and void. At the top of each list is the Galileo case, perhaps the most infamous of all the Church’s supposed ‘failures’ wherein the Church explicitly condemned the acceptance of the movement of the earth as formal heresy. Those lists alleged that the Galileo decision turned out to be a blunder of unimaginable proportions. From generation to generation this tale is told, much to the delight of antiCatholics and much to the inconvenience of Catholics. The tale is told not, mind you, because anyone within the Church now actually denies that the earth does move, nor do they deny that Galileo was right all along or that the Church of 1616/1633 couldn’t tell faith from science, but because Catholics want their infallibility and their fixed sun and moving earth. As one can see, the only way to have this cake and at the same time eat it is to deny that the anti-Copernican decrees of 1616-1633 had any real authority at all, that they were like a bad joke gone wrong. 2 Perhaps the most honest history ever written of the Galileo case – and the casuistry that followed the alleged ‘proofs’ that earth moves and was not placed by God at the centre of the world, and that the sun stood still – was A History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom, 1896, a book by Andrew Dickson White. He records that the history of the denial of infallibility of the 1616-1633 antiCopernican decree began even before Galileo died. At first they resorted to a denial that the Copernican theory was declared formal heresy and conjured up a load of excuses that sufficed for the world who had no other facts to judge the matter on, but who simply trusted Churchmen to feed them the truth as expected.
But as the archives were opened up and the records themselves were made public, it was soon seen the faithful had been led astray. And as each objection to infallibility was shown to be a contradiction of the facts, the apologists became even more desperate. Andrew White tells us what happens next: …This contention, then, was at last utterly given up by honest Catholics themselves. In I870 a Roman Catholic clergyman in England, the Rev. Mr Roberts, evidently thinking that the time had come to tell the truth, published a book entitled The Pontifical Decrees against the Earth’s Movement, and in this
exhibited the incontrovertible evidences that the papacy had committed itself and its infallibility fully against the movement of the earth.