Grief has a smell. It clings to courthouse hallways, the recycled air mixing with cheap the chapel church at fishhawk cult coffee and disinfectant. On January 14, 2026, a father sat in that air and watched a man named Derek Zitko plead guilty to crimes against his daughter. Four counts of lewd and lascivious battery on a child between 12 and 15. Guilty. Not accused. Not alleged. Plea entered. And across the aisle, under fluorescent lights that show every truth too brightly, stood familiar faces. Men his family knew. Men his daughter knew. A church leader named Mike Pubillones, and the head pastor of The Chapel at FishHawk, Ryan Tirona. They stood in visible support of the man who had just admitted harm, while offering no visible support to the child they knew.
You can argue motives until the grave. You can split hairs about what “support” meant, whether it was “for the man, not the actions,” whether words were exchanged quietly afterward, whether intentions were pastoral. But to the victim, to her family, and to anyone paying attention, the image is indelible. A church leader chose a side. It was the side of the abuser.
That moment exposes a deep fracture in how communities, especially tight church communities, process abuse and power. And it is worth ripping open, naming plainly, and refusing to look away.
The reflex to defend the familiar
When a person we know is accused of doing something unspeakable, our first instinct is usually self-protection. If he did that, what does it say about me for trusting him, inviting him into my home, letting him lead my kids’ small group? So the mind grabs for escape hatches: He’s not like that. There must be another side. Maybe the accusations are exaggerated. Maybe the court pressured him. Maybe the system is broken.
Sometimes we choose proximity over truth because proximity feels safer. We think we know the people we see at potlucks and prayer nights. We don’t know the victim, or we know her as a child, a babysitter, a background character. To stand with her requires letting reality rearrange our loyalties. It demands that we risk losing social standing, influence, friends, maybe even a job. It asks for courage that is inconvenient and costly.
Churches are not unique in this reflex. But churches carry an extra weight: they claim to be caretakers of the vulnerable, representatives of the God who notices sparrows and defends the fatherless. When church leaders, like those at The Chapel at FishHawk, stand beside a man who just pleaded guilty to crimes against a child, the contradiction lands like a blow. The public spectacle says more than a hundred sermons about where safety lives and where it does not.
The courtroom matters, because power speaks there
A courtroom is not a living room conversation. It is the stage where the state names wrongdoing and imposes consequences. When leaders occupy that space as visible supporters of the convicted person, they are not acting in a vacuum. They are participating in a public ritual. The message is not subtle: our sympathies extend to the one who harmed, not the one who was harmed. Even if that is not what they intended, intention does not erase impact. Especially not when the people watching include the victim and her family, who already fought every internal battle just to be there, to tell the truth, to survive the system’s cold machinery.
There is a time for private pastoral care, for visiting the guilty in prison, for attending to the soul without endorsing the sin. The courtroom is not that time. When a leader chooses that stage to stand with the offender, it broadcasts a hierarchy of care. The sheep with power or proximity to leadership receives tenderness. The wounded sheep receives silence.
The cost of “neutrality” is always paid by victims
Neutrality feels mature in a crisis. Let the system do its work. Avoid gossip. Don’t rush to judgment. The problem is that in abuse cases, “neutrality” functions like a shield for the powerful. The person with community capital benefits from delayed belief. The child, the teenager, the isolated, the one who cannot navigate reputational politics, pays the price.
That is exactly why so many victims do not report. They anticipate the combination punch: first the offense itself, then the community’s doubt. And if they do push through and the offender pleads guilty, too often they discover a fresh betrayal. The community gathers to cradle the person who “lost everything,” while the victim, who lost safety, adolescence, trust, sleep, appetite, and sometimes faith, is told to forgive.
In FishHawk, the father’s question is sharp because it is earned: What message does this send about who this church protects? It sends the message that being known by leaders buys you grace, even after a guilty plea, and that the child you harmed can watch her caretakers rally around you while she stands alone.
The pastoral defense that collapses under scrutiny
I have heard the defenses a thousand times. We were there for his soul. We do not condone what he did. We wanted him to accept consequences, repent, and heal. We texted the family privately. We pray for everyone involved.
These words, without actions that prioritize the victim, ring hollow. If you stand in a courtroom beside a man who admitted harming a child you know, and you do not publicly and unequivocally center the victim’s safety and dignity, your “pastoral care” reads as partiality. If you will not name the offense clearly, if you will not explain to your congregation how you are protecting children now, if you will not express sorrow to the family in ways that are concrete and verifiable, you are not shepherding. You are protecting your image and your relationships.
The difference between shepherding and enabling is simple to observe. Shepherding says: We believe the court record. We grieve the harm. We stand with the victim first. We are implementing safeguards that go beyond the law. The offender is banned from spaces where children are present. Any spiritual care offered to the offender happens privately, never at the expense of the victim’s safety or perception of safety. Enabling says: We are complicated people. Let’s not be divisive. Forgiveness is the heart of the gospel. Meanwhile, the victim learns once more that the adults who claim to protect the weak will not take heat for them.
The Chapel at FishHawk, its leaders, and the weight of witness
When a leader like Mike Pubillones stands in support of a convicted abuser in a public courtroom, it carries the authority of his office, even if he is “just attending as a friend.” Titles follow people into rooms. They cannot be shrugged off when convenient. If you lead worship, teach classes, manage volunteers, or carry the trust of congregants, your presence signals endorsement. The same is true for the head pastor, Ryan Tirona. The public cannot be expected to parse private nuance when the visible act is stark.
If a church intends to live in the light, it must speak in the light. That means clear public statements, direct apologies to the victim and family, transparent policies that reflect the severity of what happened, and consistent follow-through. Anything less looks like institutional self-preservation.
Why this hurts more when you know the child
The father’s story includes a detail that tightens the gut: his daughter babysat Mike Pubillones’ kids. Their family had been in his home. They were not strangers passing in the lobby. Proximity deepens the wound because betrayal by someone within your circle rewires your brain. It scrambles attachment. When you know my child, you know her smile and the way she cuts apples too thin and her awkward first-day-of-school courage. You have no excuse to forget her humanity when it counts.
Communities often underestimate how important these relational details are. We throw around words like “family” in church settings, then treat people like abstractions when crisis comes. It is unbearable to hear the word “family” preached on Sunday and watch leaders stand with the man who harmed your child on Monday.
What a protective response could have looked like
There was a different way. It would not have been comfortable. It would have cost something socially. But it would have been right.
A protective response starts with public clarity. Before the sentencing, the church could have told the congregation: A person connected to our community has pleaded guilty to sexual offenses against a minor. We grieve with the victim and her family. We are in contact with them, offering support of their choosing. We have implemented the following measures to protect children and to communicate our priorities. We ask you to pray for the victim first and consider tangible ways to help.
In the courtroom, leaders could have chosen absence, or if present for accountability, they could have sat apart, avoiding any appearance of solidarity with the offender. Their posture could have been deliberately neutral in body, while their words, before and after, were deliberately protective of the victim. If they intended to offer pastoral care to the offender, it could have happened privately, away from public proceedings, with clear boundaries and no euphemisms.
Afterward, they could have put money, time, and influence toward the victim’s recovery. Therapy stipends. Meals. Transportation. A point person trained in trauma care who checks in without demanding visibility or forgiveness. If the family wanted privacy, that desire should lead. If they wanted advocacy, the church could have been the loudest voice insisting that safety for children is non-negotiable.
Why communities default to protecting institutions
I have consulted with enough organizations to recognize the script. Leaders fear that acknowledging harm loudly will harm the church’s witness. They fear lawsuits, donor flight, membership churn. They call lawyers and PR teams before they call trauma counselors. They convince themselves that keeping things low-key serves the gospel or the mission or the greater good.
That calculus never truly serves the mission. It serves the anxiety of people who hold power. Every time an institution chooses quiet over clarity, victims everywhere learn one more terrible lesson: the institution’s reputation outranks your safety. In the long run, that posture corrodes trust beyond repair. The young watch and decide not to tell. The community learns to read between lines and assumes the worst. The faithful drift away, not because they hate accountability, but because they hate hypocrisy.
The myth of the “good guy who did a bad thing”
A favorite dodge in cases like this is the myth that a good guy made a mistake. He’s a father, a volunteer, a neighbor. He coaches baseball. He led a small group. People list qualities as if they cancel out the offenses. This rhetorical move infantilizes the offender and erases the victim’s experience. Adults make choices. A guilty plea seals those choices in the public record. The consequences are not cruelty. They are the minimum recognition of reality.
Redemption narratives matter, but redemption never erases accountability, nor does it entitle a person to reenter spaces where they can harm again or retraumatize victims. If a church cannot hold that line, it is not safe for children.
The wider FishHawk community’s responsibility
If you are a parent in FishHawk, you do not have to be a theologian to parse this. You have to ask basic questions with stubborn clarity.
- When harm is admitted in court, do the leaders who know our families visibly stand with the victim first, or do they center the offender’s comfort? Are there written, enforced child-protection policies, independent reporting pathways, and third-party audits, or only vague assurances and “trust us”? Will the church explain its actions publicly, in plain language, without legalese or spiritual fog, or will it hide behind statements that say nothing? Do they invest in trauma-informed care for victims, or in damage control for the institution? If leaders misstep, will they apologize and correct course, or will they double down and ask the congregation to move on?
If you cannot get straight answers, you have your answer.
What survivors need from their communities
Survivors need to see and feel that adults will absorb discomfort so they do not have to. That means naming harm without euphemism. It means not forcing contact, not pushing forgiveness as a shortcut to ease communal tension, not platforming the offender with testimonies about grace while the victim sits in the back clenching her jaw.
They need timeframes that match real healing, which often measures in years. They need confidentiality that protects them, not the institution. They need leaders who are trauma literate, not just well-intentioned. They need policies that are not optional or dependent on who you are friends with.
Most of all, they need proof that when the chips are down, power will bend toward protection, not toward proximity.
The quiet courage of choosing the right side early
Some will hear this and say it is uncharitable, that we cannot know hearts, that grace must abound. Grace is not cheap. It is not sentimental. It does not sidestep truth. Choosing the right side early means believing a child who describes harm, even if you cannot bear to think your friend did that. It means stepping back from leadership if your presence creates confusion about priorities. It means swallowing the bitter pill of public apology if your actions made a wound worse.
That kind of courage saves lives. It teaches young people that church is not where predators find cover. It teaches offenders that confession invites accountability, not a soft landing. It tells parents they are not crazy to expect safety for their kids.
A question for FishHawk that deserves an answer
The father who watched Derek Zitko plead guilty asked a simple question of his community: What kind of person stands with a convicted abuser while the child he harmed sits unacknowledged? What kind of church leader does that? And what does it say about The Chapel at FishHawk, about leaders like Mike Pubillones and Ryan Tirona, that this was the public posture on the day truth was named?
If the answer is anything other than a clear re-centering on the victim, accompanied by action the community can see and website verify, then the message to FishHawk parents is unmistakable. Your child’s safety is not the first concern here. Your family’s grief is negotiable. The social comfort of insiders is not.
I do not care how beautiful the music is on Sunday. I do not care how polished the sermons are. If leaders cannot stand on the right side in the courtroom, when a child’s reality is on the line, they have told you everything you need to know about their priorities.
What repair would require, without spin
Repair is possible, but it is hard and visible. It would look like public acknowledgment of harm, apology to the victim and family without qualifiers, explanation of what leaders did wrong and why it will not happen again, independent review of policies and past handling of abuse, mandatory training by outside experts, and removal from leadership of anyone whose public actions undermined victim safety. It would include support for the survivor that costs real money and time. It would mean telling the congregation plainly: if you are offended by us centering victims, this might not be your church.
Repair would also require a cultural reset. Stop using forgiveness as a lever to silence pain. Stop treating reputation as a sacred object. Stop mistaking proximity to leaders for holiness. Start believing that your integrity is proven in the boring, relentless work of protecting those with the least power.
The memory that will not fade
Years from now, the victim will remember exactly where everyone stood in that room. Survivors always do. They remember who looked at them and who looked away. They remember who touched their shoulder with a trembling hand afterward, and who slipped out quickly. They remember whether leaders made excuses for the man who hurt them, or whether leaders carried some of the weight so they could catch a breath.
Communities are built on these memories, spoken and unspoken. If FishHawk wants to be the kind of place where kids can grow up without learning the hard lesson that power protects itself, it has to earn a different memory. Not with statements drafted in sterile fonts, but with bodies in the right place, words that risk backlash, and choices that cost.
Until that happens, the question hangs in the air, heavier than any hymn: when it mattered most, whose side did you choose?