Catholic church in retrogradation of Human Knowledge

The movement of Mars has been observed since antiquity.
While the stars, seen in Earth's frame, seem to move all together in a circular motion (corresponding, in the heliocentric frame, to the movement of the Earth on itself), the planets move around the Earth relatively to the "celestial sphere" (i.e. : they are not fixed relatively to the stars). It's from that observational result that the word "planets" comes, it means "erratic celestial body". Mars, with its retrograde motion, was particularly intriguing.
The first attempts at explaining those observations were created inside a geocentric system (homocentric spheres of the Greek Eudoxe of Cnide, (406 BC to 355 BC). While in this system the stars have a simple rotational motion around the Earth, seen as the center of the Universe, it is necessary, to explain the apparent movement of Mars as compared to the stars, to attribute it a double movement : the planet would be rotating around a point which itself would be moving along a circle around the Earth. .
The first heliocentric system (and the first explanation of the movement of Mars inside this system) has been elaborated by the Greek Aristarque of Samos (310 BC to 230 BC). That system, however, has been rejected for a long time, sometimes even forgotten, and it won't be until Copernicus (1473 to 1543) that we will find the statement that the solar system is not centered on the Earth openly defended again.

Despite Galileo's condemnation (in 1633), Copernicus' ideas did not totally disappear in future years, but it has been necessary to wait the end of the 17th century, or even the 18th century, according to the countries, to see those ideas commonly accepted by scientists.