Galileo was threatened with torture and found guilty of violating the teachings of the church; he had to sign a statement he would never publish that the earth moves again. He was under house arrest after that until his death. Copernicus was deathly afraid of publishing his work and it was not published until he was on his deathbed. His work was placed on the list of forbidden writings. The protestants all followed the same path in opposition to the new findings of science in their day; you saw them protest that the Bible certainly says Joshua commanded the sun to stand still, and not the earth to stop rotating, therefore Copernicus was in error.
Today we are in a transition state on the reaction of the religious folks to the age of the earth and the fact of evolution. Some accept these findings, others deny these findings. Should our Lord tarry, the day will come when most religious people will affirm the bible was really talking about evolution and an older earth all along. But it will require a few funerals to take place.
Copernicus was not afriad of publishing his book. It was prefaced by Nicholas von Schunberg, the Archbishop of Capua and dedicated to Pope Paul III. The only reason it was published post-humously is because he had a stroke and died while it was being printed. Only mild controversy followed its publication as such ideas were already known by most educated Europeans as they were aware of Philolaus and Aristarchus in Greek Philosophy.
As to Galileo, Tommaso Caccini and Christoph Schreiner and a couple other of his enemies drafted formal heresy charges and denounced him from the pulpit.
The first Inquest in 1616 decided he was prohibited from teaching Heliocentrism, declared it heretical and ordered the destruction of his and Copernicus' book. That was it.
Galileo's second trial started in 1633 after he continued to teach Heliocentrism. In the intervening period he was heaped with praise and visited the pontiff himself. He then offended Pope Urban VIII by putting the pope's arguments into the mouth of a character called Simplicio (Simpleton) in his book "Dialogue on the two world systems". This resulted in his second trial.
As to being threatened with torture, there are no such things mentioned in contemporary accounts, that is what moderns like to say to show how unreasonable the trial was (It was standard practice to threaten with torture at the time though).
Afterwards he was placed under house arrest in Archbishop Piccolomini's villa, hardly a terrible punishment and under the protection of a powerful Churchman. He then returned to his own villa and was placed under arrest, meaning he needed permission to leave the territory of the Republic of Florence. He continued his research in mechanics and was visited by multiple Heliocentrists and scientists. Hardly someone being persecuted, my friend.
As to people transitioning to believing evolution and the age of the earth, you may be right. But just keep in mind, just because we think it is true, does not mean it is. Most of the middle-ages believed in Geocentrism, while a equally old theory of Heliocentrism was correct. Likewise, Galenic circulation of blood was held as fact for 1300 years. We may be surprised what our descendants will believe, while they will surely shake their heads at how backwards our thought was.
