Ultimately, Galileo’s telescope struck a fatal blow to the Ptolemaic system. But, in a sense, the telescope was also nearly fatal to Galileo himself. The Catholic Church, desperately trying to hold the protestant heresy at bay, could not accept a scientific assault on its own theories of the universe. The pressures of the age set in motion a historic confrontation between religion and science, one which would culminate in 1633 when the church put Galileo on trial, forced him to recant his stated and published scientific beliefs, and put him under permanent house arrest.