The Catholic Church has always been, and continues to be, a very strong supporter of the sciences (especially astronomy) -- both financially and academically.

So why did she have an issue with Galileo over his description of our solar system’s dynamics? After all, the heliocentric model is the correct one.

Well, the heliocentric model had been proposed by Catholics a number of times before Galileo. At the time of Galileo, the Catholic Church did not yet have a final position regarding it, since it was still unproven.

Enter Galileo. He insisted on touting his theory as fact, when he hadn’t even proved it yet. He also wrote some very disrespectful things about the pope, and otherwise made a combative spectacle of himself.

So the Catholic Church rebuked him, and placed him under house arrest (in some very posh settings, mind you), and allowed him to continue his academic work. So he was not truly imprisoned, and he was certainly never tortured.

And importantly, many other (less irascible) scientists, who did not insist on heliocentrism’s being a fact until it could be proven, were allowed to continue promoting heliocentrism as a theory.

Bottom line: Galileo wasn’t censured for his theories, but for his methods.