I agree, Jon. Here is something one of my STEM education students wrote about Copernicus (grade 8):
Copernicus was a Christian who lived a quiet life. He was hesitant to publish his revolutionary views. Yet Copernicus changed how Europeans came to think about the cosmos. He believed that truth directs our hearts and minds to the Creator. He wrote, “[It is my] loving duty to seek the truth in all things, in so far as God has granted that to human reason.”
Copernicus died on May 24, 1543 and was buried in an unmarked grave in the floor of the cathedral of Frombork in Northern Poland. Copernicus was never declared a heretic for his astronomical views because he spoke to few about them. So why did Copernicus have such a humble burial? Jack Repcheck, the author of Copernicus’ Secret: How the Scientific Revolution Began, explains that Copernicus was buried in the same way as any other canon in Frombork because at that time, “He was not the iconic hero that he has become."
Copernicus’s death at the age of 70 is not the end of the story, however. In 1992 Pope John Paul II said the church was wrong to condemn Galileo who based his work on that of Copernicus.
In 2004 scientists began searching for the astronomer’s remains and discovered his bones. The identity was confirmed through DNA testing. The DNA of the teeth and bones matched that of hairs found in one of Copernicus’s books.
Six years later, on May 21, 2010, the Roman Catholic Church gave permission to polish priests to rebury Copernicus in a tomb in the cathedral where he once served as a canon.