[Tennessee Nana]

I was taught as a child that Galileo said that the Earth and other planets revolved around the Sun...

Making the Sun the center of the Universe...

Since the Catholic Church taught that the Earth was the center of the Universe, Galileo was ordered to recant his scientific beliefs...

When he would not he was excommunicated...

[Mad Dawg]

TN:

That is an amazing over-simplification.

It’s quite remarkable. At my seminary a renowned NT professor went off on how the Church thought and taught the world was flat, when Dante and Chaucer alone suffice to show that’s just not so.

IOW, a lot of anti-Catholicism combined with intellectual laziness led to some severe errors in teaching the history of Galileo and other thought of the so-called “Dark Ages”.

[Ditto]

When he would not he was excommunicated...

He was never excommunicated. His punishment was pennance and house arrest, in a very villa where he continued his scientifc work and writing until his death nine years later at the ripe old age of 77.

[Petronski]

I was taught as a child...

A biased if not false set of facts about Galileo.

[bdeaner]

When he would not he was excommunicated...

The article is elaborating why what you were taught is an over-simplication and unfairly suggests the Church was anti-science, when in actuality the Church provided the foundation for sciencce as we know it.