07-21-2025, 01:23 PM
"You can't be too careful with Yeti blood oaths" Words to live by. Words to live by.
Quote:The Pillar, a journalistic outfit covering the world of Catholicism, recently published a wild story about a group of Denver-based seminarians that, in early 2024, went on what should’ve been a wholesome ski trip with their vice rector. It grotesquely morphed into a midnight initiation ritual featuring a yeti costume, a bloodied cloth, taped mouths, a fake dagger, and a whole lot of screaming.
Seminarians were woken up in the dead of night and led, one by one, into a trailer where they were greeted by Fr. John Nepil, a senior seminarian, who was dressed as a yeti. After a mock ritual involving “grizzly blood” and ominous warnings like “if you enter into this family, there’s no going back,” seminarians reemerged with bloodied hands and taped mouths.
Sounds like a nightmare, but Nepil insists that it was just all in good fun. C’mon, guys! I wasn’t actually going to blood oath you dressed as a yeti! It was a goof—a common yeti blood oath goof!
FAKE YETI BLOOD OATH BROKE A SEMINARY IN DENVER
Videos of the “ritual” circulated. It became immediately apparent to everyone who watched them that it wasn’t so much a harmless prank as a surreal nightmare that those people should not have been subjected to.
The archdiocese launched an investigation but determined that no canonical crime had occurred. It reassigned Nepil—but only briefly. Despite being removed as a formator, he resumed his duties as vice rector until the end of the year and remains on the faculty.
Despite what the archdiocese of Denver called “a deeply imprudent and inappropriate prank,” Nepil got a slap on the wrist, punished with only a cool-off period where everyone was told to take five before being thrown back into the mix with each other.
As if the story up to this point wasn’t surreal enough, the archbishop later called in an exorcist who “prayed over them, and they made a formal renunciation of this blood oath that they had made.”
Everyone agreed that it was just a misguided, albeit harmless, prank that had gone awry. But just to be safe, they brought in their friendly neighborhood exorcist to expunge any evil spirits that the yeti blood oath might have left behind. You know, just in case.
You can’t be too careful with yeti blood oaths.
As a matter of fact, my anger does keep me warm
