It was science that was being used as the excuse for the action on both sides. The scientific argument was the public face of the political battle. As so often happens in history, it was the official reason as opposed to the real one.
If Galileo had merely presented his theory, instead of trying to club the Church with it, the results would have been very different. Many in the Church had already accepted the heliocentric (sp?) theory.
Shalom.
Good grief--are you still at this? Maybe you should be talking to the guy who thinks that 500 people observed christ's resurrection, and were tortured to death by a mysterious cabal of conspirators for it.
Ahhgh! More of this balony. The heliocentric theory of the universe was in direct conflict with central teachings of the catholic church, whether many in the church believed it or not was irrelevant. What was relevant, for the church, was that the heliocentric picture of the universe undermined the notion, amongst the illiterate, that the church spoke with the voice of God regarding the disposition of the earth, because it undermined the notion that the earth was the center of the universe, and therefore, God's special concern.
If Galileo had sung sweetly as an angel, or smelled like fresh cat dung, it would have made precisely 0 difference--the idea, not the man, was what was dangerous and offensive to the church.
This is so unbelievably out to lunch.