Who is Copernicus? Why does the journalist, Hornbeck, refer to Bert Cates as the new Copernicus?

Copernicus was a Renaissance astronomer and the first person to formulate a comprehensive heliocentric cosmology which displaced the Earth from the center of the universe. Naturally the Church felt that he was blasphemous against God with his scientific ideas. Similarly Bert Case, teaching evolution, to his science kids was called blasphemous by the religious right in the community.