Denominations

Hasn't the Catholic church changed it's views on social issues at times?

Nope.

Take artificial contraception.  Up until the Lambeth conference in 1930 where the Anglican Church made a minor exception to the use of Artificial contraception, every Christian denomination condemned its use.  Now every Christian denomination except for the Catholic Church permits its use.

The Catholic Church's official teachings do not change with time.

The whole Galileo thing was more political than scientific.

Galileo was also in error - the sun is not stationary and the orbits are not circular.  It was ultimately about Galileo being arrogant.

Copernicus was a Catholic priest and when he presented his theory to the Pope it was well received.  However, the problem was the same reason that a heliocentric model was rejected by the Greeks.  There was no means of seeing a parallax.  The Jesuits  and universities were not forbidden from investigating a heliocentric model - only that they were not able to say it was true until it had been proven to be so.

The Church has always been open to science.  Faith & Reason combined have always been at the centre of Catholicism.

 There seems to be some Catholic sources that say it's blasphemy to deny a geocentric model because of those given authority to speak as an oracle for God had declared it so.

 If a scientific theory conflicted with scripture, how could they accept it?

The Galileo thing popped up at the same time at the Protestant revolt was in full swing.  The Protestants were accusing the Papacy of denying the Bible for not condemning Galileo outright.   Galileo on the other hand was saying that not only did you have to believe him, but that the Church had to change its teachings.  As the Church's claim that it is the sole authority issues of Faith, this made it extremely difficult on the Pope. 

When Galileo wrote a defense of his position, what he wrote could be interpreted as calling Pope Urban VII "Simplicio" - a simpleton.  He forced the Pope to act.  He was however protected by the Pope from a much harsher sentence than he could have been convicted with.

The Church's position was to follow the consensus of the best scientists.  When they asked Galileo to prove his position by showing the parallax that must exist if his position was true, he couldn't.  Yet he demanded that they accept his position as true.  When there is an objection that you cannot answer, you cannot demand that standard model must be rejected.  As noted Copernicus said the same thing, but he was not labelled a heretic - the Church took it into consideration with interest. 

It didn't.  However, the Protestants screaming that it did made patience to resolve the situation difficult.  As the Pope's primary concern is the salvation of souls and the unity of the faith he was forced to act.

Yeah.  The Church itself has said that its authority does not extend into the scientific realm.  Jesus did not leave that authority to the Apostles.  If by some means the flat earthers are correct and the Geocentric model is correct, the Church would accept that.  The salvation of souls is not dependent on the relative movement of the sun and earth.

Why is the Catholic church so staunch on Transubstantiation? There's certainly no scientific evidence of it. And miracles that defy natural science are generally visible and made clear.

When you say It didn't, do you mean heliocentrism doesn't  conflict with scripture. If so, I would agree with that. But my understanding was that the Catholic church's authoritative position was that it did conflict with the holy scriptures. Are you saying it was only the Protestants that opposed heliocentrism?

I agree. Do you feel that if an evangelical Christian missionary leads an Indonesian village to Christ, that none of the villagers would be saved because the missionaries are not part of the Catholic church?

The Church teaches that if a person is invincibly ignorant that the Catholic Church is the church of Christ, but lives out an exemplary life holding true to natural law would receive what is necessary from God to gain salvation (even if it need be instruction from an angel on his/her deathbed).

Because this is what Jesus told them.  It is his body and blood.  

At the time Protestants did oppose heliocentrism.   There were some Catholics who did oppose it and some who were open to it.  The Church had great respect for the teachings of

Aristotle, and Aristotle had been a proponent of the Geocentric model.  Thus the majority of scientists of the time believed the Geocentric model to be accurate.  Without

conclusive proof the Church was not willing to contradict the teachings of so esteemed a philosopher.  That doesn't mean that they refused to.  You have to remember the Church does not act quickly, it takes time to review and consider.

There were ways to read the scriptures both ways.  The Church would follow the thinking of St. Augustine:

"Usually, even a non-Christian knows something about the earth, the heavens, and the other elements of this world, about the motion and orbit of the stars and even their size and

relative positions, about the predictable eclipses of the sun and moon, the cycles of the years and the seasons, about the kinds of animals, shrubs, stones, and so forth, and this knowledge he holds to as being certain from reason and experience. Now, it is a disgraceful and dangerous thing for an

infidel to hear a Christian, presumably giving the meaning of Holy Scripture, talking non-sense on these topics; and we should take all means to prevent such an embarrassing situation, in which people show up vast ignorance in a Christian and laugh it to scorn. The shame is not so much that an ignorant individual is derided, but that people outside the household of the faith think our sacred writers held such opinions, and, to the great loss of those for whose salvation we toil, the writers of our Scripture are criticized and rejected as unlearned men. If they find a Christian mistaken in a field which they themselves know well and hear him maintaining his foolish opinions about our books, how are they going to believe those books in matters concerning the resurrection of the dead, the hope of eternal life, and the kingdom of heaven, when they think their pages are full of falsehoods on facts which they themselves have learnt from experience and the light of reason? Reckless and incompetent expounders of holy Scripture bring untold trouble and sorrow on their wiser brethren when they are caught in one of their mischievous false opinions and are taken to task by those who are not bound by the authority of our sacred books. For then, to defend their utterly foolish and obviously untrue statements, they will try to call upon Holy Scripture for proof and even recite from memory many passages which they think support their position, although “they understand neither what they say nor the things about which they make assertion.”

Jesus also said He was the Vine, and the Door. Why couldn't His reference to bread and wine be figurative?