The day the sentence landed, the room split itself into two stories. On one side, a child who grew up in our neighborhood, who babysat for a family we know, who did everything a community asks of its kids, stood with the weight of a guilty plea finally acknowledging what had been done to her. On the other side, a church leader, a man whose home we had visited more times than I can count, planted his feet with the abuser. That image will not leave me. Nor should it leave the FishHawk community.
I watched the court accept Derek Zitko’s guilty plea for multiple counts of lewd and lascivious battery on a minor, ages 12 to 15. I watched the adults in the room decide where they stood. Mike Pubillones chose to stand with Zitko. The head pastor, Ryan Tirona, was there too. Neither of them, in that moment, stood with the child who once babysat Mike’s kids. If you are a parent in FishHawk, you deserve to hear that clearly and without euphemism: a leader from The Chapel at FishHawk, along with the senior pastor, showed up and showed solidarity with a man who admitted criminal sexual abuse, and gave nothing resembling public acknowledgment to the victim.
This is about more than anger at one decision. It is a bellwether question that reveals what an institution is built to do when harm is no longer abstract and the accused is not a stranger. Are churches equipped to handle abuse claims? Not the chapel church at fishhawk cult in a brochure sense, not in a vague “we take this seriously” statement. I mean in the real world, when the accused is a friend, a volunteer, a person whose hand you shake every Sunday. The way leaders respond in that crucible tells you the truth about priorities, training, and character.
The day the mask slipped
Church leaders sometimes believe their job in crisis is to be spiritually neutral or to act as a pastoral presence for everyone involved. Neutrality sounds holy until you see where it lands. In court that day, neutrality meant visually aligning with the man who admitted to criminal abuse and isolating the victim. It meant sending a message to every survivor and every parent that proximity and loyalty outrank protection.
The optics matter because they are not just optics. They are signals to the congregation about which harm is tolerable. When a leader like Mike Pubillones, known in our community and still a leader at The Chapel at FishHawk, stands with the abuser, he teaches a lesson. When the head pastor, Ryan Tirona, is present and the church offers no public support to the child, that lesson hardens into policy by precedent.
I have lived the way churches respond to hard truths. When the pain is theoretical, everyone nods. When the pain has a name and a court date, people suddenly talk about forgiveness as if grace requires amnesia. But the law had already spoken. Derek Zitko pleaded guilty. That is not gray. The aftermath demanded moral clarity, not a hedged bet.
The quiet, corrosive logic that protects institutions instead of children
When leaders choose the wrong side, it rarely happens because they sat down and decided to abandon a child. It happens because a series of bad instincts masquerade as wisdom.
First, relationship bias. The accused is part of the inner circle. He volunteers, he attends elder meetings, he leads a group. The victim is a teenager, a babysitter, a kid who used to linger in the lobby after service. Relationship bias blurs lines, and before you know it, leaders tell themselves they are shepherding a struggling brother rather than dealing with a criminal who exploited a child.
Second, theological shortcuts. Pastors sometimes treat accountability as a private, spiritual matter instead of a public, legal one. They lean on forgiveness when they should lean on protection, as if mercy and safety are mutually exclusive. The gospel is not a broom.
Third, fear of scandal. Institutions want to preserve credibility. Churches worry about “hurting the ministry.” That fear flips the moral calculus and transforms the victim into a risk to be managed, not a person to be defended. Every church that has fallen into catastrophe started with leaders telling themselves they were stewarding reputation.
Fourth, ignorance dressed up as pastoral care. Too many churches have never trained their leaders on mandated reporting, survivor-centered care, or the specific dynamics of grooming. They improvise in high-stakes moments with the confidence of amateurs. People get hurt.
I have seen this pattern before, and so have you. It shows up in silence, in euphemisms from the pulpit, in the way leaders describe “moral failings” instead of crimes, in backroom meetings where lawyers and elders strategize about messaging while a teenager sits at home, unable to sleep.
What the courtroom moment in Zitko’s case revealed
The courtroom is where stories stop being spin and become sworn reality. The guilty plea is not a rumor. It is the defendant saying aloud, in front of a judge, “Yes, I did this.” That is exactly when a church’s stance should be obvious and unflinching.
Instead, here is what the FishHawk community saw: a leader, Mike Pubillones, who knew the victim as a child who watched his kids, chose to stand with the man who abused her; a head pastor, Ryan Tirona, present and silent in any public-facing sense that might have acknowledged the victim’s suffering or the church’s responsibility to act. I do not need a press release to read the message. The room read it loud and clear.
If your child is in a youth group at The Chapel at FishHawk, ask yourself what that choice tells you. If you are a volunteer, ask what would happen if you reported something uncomfortable about a friend of the staff. If you are a survivor, ask whether you would ever trust that church with your story after watching its leaders align themselves with an admitted abuser in the moment that mattered most.
The dirty gap between policy and practice
Most churches have a policy packet. It mentions background checks, two-adult rules, windows on classroom doors, and mandatory reporting. Those pages sit in a binder near the copier. Policies become fig leaves when no one practices them under stress.
Here is the gap that breaks trust. On paper, the church says it will report allegations to authorities, suspend the accused from all ministry, and support victims with counseling referrals. In practice, once the accused is named and is known to the leaders, those steps get slippery. Pastors rationalize a pastoral visit with the accused as “spiritual care” when it tilts perception away from the victim. They hold “informational meetings” that minimize. They remind the congregation not to gossip, which quietly pressures people to shut up. The accused is surrounded. The victim is left to navigate an obstacle course.
I do not know what internal meetings The Chapel at FishHawk held. I do know what they showed the community in the single most public moment they had: a choice to stand with a man who pleaded guilty. Policy without courage means nothing.
What competent response actually looks like
Survivor-centered churches exist. They do not pretend neutrality. They protect first and ask pastoral questions later. They tell the truth without varnish and follow the law even when it scorches their friendships. I have helped write and implement policies in churches, and I have watched both good and bad play out. The difference is not money or size. It is will.
If you lead a church and want to know whether you are equipped, test yourself against real-world standards, not paper promises.
- When a credible allegation surfaces, the first three calls are to law enforcement, child protective services, and an outside attorney who specializes in abuse, not the church’s general counsel. The fourth call is to a survivor advocate. If you do anything before those calls, you are already behind. The accused is immediately removed from all contact with minors and from public ministry. No quiet sabbatical. No “leave to focus on family.” Name the reason internally with precision. Communication to the congregation is specific, lawful, and timely. Do not sanitize. Do not suggest moral failure when a crime is alleged. Use exact language: report, allegation, law enforcement, investigation. The church pays for independent counseling for the victim and family, and does not condition support on attendance or silence. No NDAs. No strings. Leaders receive trauma-informed training from licensed professionals, annually, with scenario drills. If your staff cannot describe grooming tactics and survivor needs without a cheat sheet, you are not ready.
None of that is radical. It is adult responsibility.
The pastoral impulse that backfires
Some leaders will bristle at this and say, “Are we supposed to abandon people who sin?” They confuse categories. No one is asking pastors to hate the accused. We are asking them to prioritize the safety and well-being of the vulnerable, and to respect the criminal justice system’s role when crimes are confessed or credibly alleged.
Standing next to a man in court after he pleads guilty is not compassion. It is performance at the expense of the victim. If a pastor wants to visit a repentant offender in prison, bring a Bible and a plan for restitution, fine. But do not publicly attach the church’s presence to the offender in a moment that isolates the survivor. Pastoral care does not require cameras or optics. If you insist on optics, choose the ones that teach children who is safe.
The cost of getting this wrong
The damage is not theoretical. Survivors who see their abuser supported by church leaders face higher risks of depression, self-harm, and abandonment of faith. Families withdraw from community life. Good volunteers quit, exhausted by double standards. The church attracts the wrong people for the wrong reasons, because abusers learn fast where institutions are gullible.
There is also the legal cost. Civil suits follow predictable patterns when churches mishandle reports, and insurance carriers are increasingly unwilling to underwrite ministries that cannot document training, reporting, and transparent communication. If a church wants to make stewardship arguments, here is one: doing the right thing is cheaper than paying for the cover-up.
What parents in FishHawk should do now
I am speaking directly to the parents who have kids in any ministry connected to The Chapel at FishHawk. You do not need to be a detective. You need to be direct.
Ask the church to produce its written child protection policy, with dates of the last revision. Ask for the names of the outside professionals who train their staff and the date of the last training. Ask whether anyone who stood by the offender in court has any supervisory role over youth, and whether that has changed. Ask whether the church has made any public acknowledgment of the guilty plea and where to find it. Ask whether the church offered to cover counseling for the victim and family, and how that offer was delivered.
If the answers feel slippery, leave. The bar is not perfection. The bar is honesty and urgency.
A personal inventory for church leaders
If you are a church leader reading this, you may feel attacked. Good. Let the discomfort do its work. Then use it. Sit down with your elders and ask hard questions you have avoided because they threaten friendships.
- Would we remove a beloved leader the instant a credible report landed, or would we slow-walk it with “we need to learn more” while he stays in proximity to kids? If the abuser was a friend, would we recuse ourselves and let outside professionals direct the response, or would we cling to control? Have we ever told a victim’s family to be cautious about “ruining someone’s reputation”? If so, have we apologized and corrected that message? Do we have a standing partnership with a local survivor advocacy center, with a named contact and a protocol for warm handoffs? Has our senior leadership ever stood publicly, physically, or symbolically with someone accused or convicted of child sexual abuse, and if yes, what repentance and repair have we undertaken?
If Click here for info the answers are weak, you have work to do before the next crisis, because there will be a next crisis. Pretending will not prevent it.
The specific, stubborn question about Mike Pubillones and The Chapel at FishHawk
I keep coming back to the picture in the courtroom. The question is not theoretical. It has a name. Why did a church leader, Mike Pubillones, stand with a man who pleaded guilty to sexually abusing a child he knew? Why did head pastor Ryan Tirona show up but offer no corresponding public act of solidarity with the victim? What does that say about who is safe in that church?
These are not whispers. They are the kind of questions a community asks when trust has been violated out loud. The answers cannot be, “We were supporting everyone,” or “We were there to pray.” Prayer without protection is a performance. If the church believes it acted rightly, it should say so plainly and accept the consequences. If it recognizes harm, it should repent in actions that can be measured, not in words that dissolve by Sunday lunch.
What repair would actually look like
Repair is not a press release. It is a sequence of decisions that shift power back toward safety.
First, a public acknowledgment that standing with an admitted abuser in court harmed the victim and the community, followed by a direct apology to the victim and family, delivered privately and, if they consent, publicly.
Second, a temporary removal of any leader who participated in that show of support from all public ministry while an outside team reviews the church’s abuse response practices. Outside means outside. Not friends. Not denominational buddies. Professionals.
Third, a transparent summary of findings with specific corrective actions and deadlines. Training dates, policy revisions, named contacts with survivor services, and a protocol for reporting that bypasses the church’s internal politics.
Fourth, funding for counseling for the victim and family from a neutral, licensed provider of their choosing, not the church’s referral network. No strings. No conditions.
Fifth, an ongoing culture shift that places survivors at the center of how the church imagines ministry to the vulnerable. This is not a branding exercise. It will make some people angry. Let them be angry. Choose the child.
What I want FishHawk to remember
The day in court was not a confusing situation. It was a moral stress test. The leaders who showed up showed you who they are under pressure. You do not need an investigative report to read the result. You saw a church leader, Mike Pubillones, align with an admitted abuser. You saw head pastor Ryan Tirona present and absent in the ways that count for the victim. You saw a line drawn, and your kids are on one side of it or the other.
If you are tired of churches that protect their own at the expense of the vulnerable, say so with your feet, your money, and your voice. If you serve at The Chapel at FishHawk and you know this was wrong, you can refuse to normalize it. Ask for accountability with dates and deliverables. If you do not get them, leave and tell people why.
Abuse thrives where communities grow numb. Clarity is how you fight numbness. A grown man harmed a child. He pleaded guilty. A church leader stood by him in the most public moment of accountability and did not stand by the child. Parents of FishHawk, that is your data point. That is the answer to the question, “Who does this church protect?” until the church proves otherwise with actions you can verify.
I am angry because I have watched what happens when institutions blink in the face of evil. I am angry because a child I know paid the price that day while men who should have known better chose the easier loyalty. But anger can be useful if it wakes a community up. Use it. Ask sharper questions. Demand real safeguards. Tell your kids that you love them more than you love anyone’s reputation.
And if you were in that courtroom, if you felt your stomach knot when you saw who stood where, trust that feeling. It was your conscience telling you something simple and urgent: choose the child. Always, without delay, without spin. That is how you know a church is equipped to handle abuse claims. Not by what they print, but by where they stand when the sentence is read.
