Ash Wednesday

Ash Wednesday is recorded in Andy Warhol’s diary on Wednesday, February 8, 1978, as a concise marker in an otherwise ordinary account of work and family news. The date gains context from Warhol’s conversation with his nephew, who planned to leave the priesthood and marry, and from the following day’s report of a baptism.## Date and Diary Context The entry identifies the day simply as Ash Wednesday, without describing a service or any observance. The date sits within the diary’s running record of calls, office visits, and personal expenses: Warhol’s nephew called before Warhol left home, and Warhol invited him to come by the office that afternoon to talk. The brief religious notation therefore anchors the conversation in the calendar rather than turning the day into a narrated ceremony.## A Family Decision and Religious Life At the office, Warhol’s nephew explained that he had given up his parish in Denver and intended to marry. Warhol noted the distinction between leaving a parish and leaving the priesthood: his nephew remained a priest after giving up the parish, but, as the diary records Warhol’s understanding, marriage would lead to excommunication. The account also records the limits of their conversation. Warhol recommended that his nephew see Saturday Night Fever, recalling its plot about a brother leaving the priesthood; his nephew said he would make his own decision, though he continued bringing the subject up. Later, after telephone rates fell, he called Denver and had Warhol speak with his fiancée, a 37-year-old Mexican-American woman whom Warhol thought sounded nice.## The Following Day The next diary entry describes Suzie Frankfurt becoming a Roman Catholic and being baptized at a church on the morning of February 9. The baptism is a separate episode, not presented as a consequence of Ash Wednesday, but its closeness in the diary places two forms of religious change side by side: the nephew’s planned departure from priestly life and Frankfurt’s entry into the Catholic Church. Ash Wednesday’s significance in this account is thus chiefly temporal and contextual, preserved in a single line between those personal developments.