The personal crisis behind the robbery involved an unconventional wedding and a confrontation with Catholic authority. After Ernest Aron attempted suicide in 1971, Aron told Father Gennaro Aurichio that she wanted to live as a woman and marry Wojtowicz. According to Aurichio’s recollection, Aron warned that without the marriage she might make another suicide attempt. The priest agreed to conduct what he described as a blessing, but insisted he would not perform what he considered a homosexual marriage. The ceremony nonetheless caused enough controversy that Aurichio was subsequently defrocked. Wojtowicz later told Judge Anthony J. Travia that the bank robbery was intended to finance Aron’s sexual-reassignment surgery. That motive became the emotional center of the press coverage and, later, Dog Day Afternoon, although journalist Arthur Bell disputed whether surgery was truly the robbery’s central purpose. The episode was consequently both a personal tragedy and an early collision between transgender identity, gay activism, religious discipline, and sensationalist crime reporting.
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AI concept artworkArchive Record · 1970s
The Defrocked Priest Behind the Robber’s Extraordinary Wedding Plan
Ernest Aron, John Wojtowicz, and Father Gennaro Aurichio / 1970s
The personal crisis behind the robbery involved an unconventional wedding and a confrontation with Catholic authority. After Ernest Aron attempted suicide in 1971, Aron told Father Gennaro Aurichio that she wanted to live as a woman and marry Wojtowicz. According to Aurichio’s recollection, Aron warned that without the marriage she might make another suicide attempt. The priest agreed to conduct what he described as a blessing, but insisted he would not perform what he considered a homosexual marriage. The ceremony nonetheless caused enough controversy that Aurichio was subsequently defrocked. Wojtowicz later told Judge Anthony J. Travia that the bank robbery was intended to finance Aron’s sexual-reassignment surgery. That motive became the emotional center of the press coverage and, later, Dog Day Afternoon, although journalist Arthur Bell disputed whether surgery was truly the robbery’s central purpose. The episode was consequently both a personal tragedy and an early collision between transgender identity, gay activism, religious discipline, and sensationalist crime reporting.
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