When was the heliocentric theory accepted by the catholic church?
As soon as it was suggested. Neither the Scientific Community nor the Church had a problem with the heliocentric theory of Copernicus or Galileo that said that the sun was the center of the universe. It was when Galileo said it was fact without enough repeatable scientific evidence that he got into trouble. By the way, the heliocentric theory that claimed the sun was the center of the universe instead of the Earth, was also incorrect. The sun is the center of the solar system but not the universe. In 1741, Pope Benedict XIV granted an imprimatur (an official approval) to the first edition of the Complete Works of Galileo. “[Galileo] declared explicitly that the two truths, of faith and of science, can never contradict each other, ‘Sacred Scripture and the natural world proceeding equally from the divine Word, the first as dictated by the Holy Spirit, the second as a very faithful executor of the commands of God’, as he wrote in his letter to Father Benedetto Castelli on 21 December 161
