Roman Inquisition Declares Copernican Theory Heretical

On February 24, 1616, Roman Inquisition consultants declared Copernican heliocentric theory "foolish and absurd in philosophy, and formally heretical." Pope Paul V and the Inquisition accepted these findings the following day. Cardinal Robert Bellarmine warned Galileo Galilei to abandon the Copernican model. In March, the Congregation of the Index suspended Copernicus's "De revolutionibus" until "corrected," prohibiting teaching heliocentrism beyond a hypothetical mathematical model. This censorship created conflict between scientific inquiry and religious authority, leading to Galileo's trial in 1633.