Its an interesting note on history, much as many think Columbus was trying to convince people the world was round not flat, when in reality they already thought so and would just telling him, truthfully, that it was round but larger than he thought, people have a notion about Copernicus and the like that they were trying to show conclusive evidence of how the Universe was to people who simply shook a bible at them. Not at all.
Just not sure about this part. While certainly for a while there was the Flat Earth Myth prevalent, with Copernicus et al, Galileo certainly had clashes with the Catholic church, with the church doctrine stating that at best Galileo's ideas were a good hypothesis to support calculations, but couldn't be presented as reality unless incontrovertible proof could be provided, as otherwise contradicted scripture which suggested the Earth didn't move.
In the end, while probably at least somewhat political in nature, Galileo was convicted of suspicion of heresy, and placed under house arrest.
So while I don't think they came up with and published their theories for the purpose of proving the church wrong, there were nevertheless clashes there, which didn't occur with Columbus.