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 pressure of the age set in motion a historic confrontation between religion and science, one which would culminate in1663 when the church put Galileo on trial, forced him to recant his states and published scientific beliefs, and put him under permanent house arrest.