Although I am a proud Catholic now, as I have been for three years, I was once a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, better known as the “Mormon” or “LDS” faith. I was there for over thirty years when I finally woke up and came home to the only religion that is true as it is the only religion founded by Jesus Christ Himself.
All the others? Founded by men (and one woman). Flawed. Most of them mean well but all of them are, whether they mean to be or not, frauds. My frequent visitors know the trouble that I’ve had with the LDS church, most recently in the past week when LDS missionaries stopped by claiming that they had a “referral,” or a request to visit me.
I’ve written about this before, but it bears repeating. My former congregation, the Albany 2nd Ward within the Albany New York Stake (parish and diocese respectively) welcomes convicted child molesters, putting the lives of the children who go there in jeopardy, or it least in my opinion.
The ward, is presently led by Dan Bolke, a Senior Civil Engineer in Niskayuna, New York. He is known locally for allegedly telling a citizen to “prove it” when said citizen complained about the foul odor that remains in the water even to this day. Yeah, he’s a real winner that guy.
In my most recent article, I shared an email message that I sent to Bolke and to his supervisor, Bruce McLaughlin, a retired state trooper turned truck driver. That joke writes itself. I got no response. Cowards don’t respond. They are cowards who obviously don’t want to do the right thing.
I made it clear that if any further harassment occurred, bad things would happen. Well, guess what, folks? Today, a member of the congregation took it upon herself to visit my home and “invite” me to come back. Needless to say, I did not respond well and scared her away under the threat of my dog having a word or two with her. Man, that girl runs fast! What she didn’t know is that I have no dog. But it worked!
Today, I sent another email giving them a deadline for guaranteeing in writing that no further harassment will occur. I told them that if they don’t respond with a satisfactory plan, I will turn the nuclear key and retaliate with criminal and civil court action. Well, folks, that deadline occurred one minute ago.
I promised that the following will happen and it looks like, unfortunately, I will have to make good on those threats:
- I will form a peaceful protest on the sidewalk outside of the church. There, I will expose their defense of a child sodomizer.
- I will protest outside of Bolke’s work, handing out fliers that expose his ward’s affinity for embracing those who harm children.
- I will involve the police. I will be requesting an Order of Protection a/k/a a restraining order.
- I will involve the civil court system. I intend to sue Bolke, McLaughlin, the missionaries who stopped by, the member who showed up and the church itself.
- I will inform local and national media outlets about the harassment and more importantly, their banning of a blogger who simply chose the wrong words but their willingness to welcome those who seek to harm children. I know that at least a few media outlets will have a field day with this.
I gave them five hours to come up with a plan and respond. Given that they did not do so, I can only assume that, as Duffy Duck would put it, this means war. A war waged within the confines of the law, mind you, but a war nonetheless. And they have no one to blame but themselves.
I am looking forward to polishing my fangs and going nuclear. I live for situations such as this, especially when it involves people who refuse to do the right thing. But I want it noted that I did try to avoid this. I really, really did.
Sending the missionaries to harass me was the straw that broke the camel’s back. Still, I tried to give them another chance, but then they apparently sent this person to continue where the missionaries left off. Even after that, I gave them yet another chance. That chance just expired without even so much as a, “can we have a little more time to respond?”
When it comes down to it, we all know that bullies are cowards. The Mormons are bullies, especially when it comes to people leaving what is not a church but is a cult. Mormons are cowards. They can’t handle confrontation without playing the victim card. It’s what they do. Time for the bullies to find out that they messed with the wrong former member.
I really don’t want to do what I am about to do, but I need to do it to show that I will not shrink from bullies. I gave them every opportunity to resolve this like men. Now, it’s time for justice to take over. There will be courtrooms. There will be negative media attention. There will be some quite unpleasant things. It will not go well for any of them.
And just remember: they asked for it.
UPDATE 9/28/2025 at 8:36 pm:
In order to be fair, I am updating this article to reflect the fact that, moments ago, Bolke sent a message via email to all members of the Albany 2nd Ward. In that message, he made it clear that I am not to be contacted by anyone. The subject line read “Request of No Contact” and went the way you would expect that to go.
All members of the ward were officially advised that “a former member of our ward, Michael Crook, has requested that no members make contact with him. Out of respect for his request, please do not call or visit his residence.”
Provided that there are no further attempts at contact, I now consider the matter to be over and done with. No need for protests, fliers or media attention. I got what I was after, which I felt was reasonable. I am happy with my Catholic faith and there will be no changing that. I have not been in the ward’s building in well over a year and I do not foresee that changing.
Over the next couple of hours, my wife will likely get text messages asking, essentially, “what up with that?” That’s fine, as long as people leave me the hell alone.
My wife is likewise making it clear that I am tired of the Facebook friend requests, the emails, the texts and the in-person visits. I think I’ve been more than reasonable considering the circumstances.
Anyway, to show that I’m not a total asshole (I am one, just not a total one!), I thought I would update this article to show that Bolke did the right thing here.
Going forward, I expect that the missionaries and the members of the ward will respect my wishes and Bolke’s request. And when a bishop makes a request, it’s pretty much a command, so I’m pleased with the resolution.