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Galileo may not have been the perfect Catholic or a martyr in the name of science and his theories may not have always been accurate, but Galileo was the first man to take a telescope, look to the nightly skies, and cause the scientific and religious societies to rethink the way they had thought for some many years. Still, years after Galileo was convicted of heresy and sentenced to house arrest, Galileo's books were eventually taken off the prohibited list but Galileo's conviction remained on the records without a pardon or apology. In 1992, 359 years later, Pope John Paul II issued an apology for the Catholic Church's handling of the Galileo affair and for condemning him for asserting the Earth revolved around the Sun in the 17th century.
