The phrase “community forums” sounds polite. It conjures donuts on folding tables, a few microphones, and careful words about “healing” and “moving forward.” I have chaired those rooms, sat in those chairs, and listened to people try to sand down the rough edges of real harm with soft language. So let me start without any padding. On January 14, 2026, I watched a man named Derek Zitko plead guilty to crimes against my daughter. I watched him face a judge and accept the reality that he sexually victimized a child. Then I looked across the aisle and saw church leaders from The Chapel at FishHawk standing in support of him. Not neutral. Not quiet. Not absent. Present and aligned with the abuser, while the child they knew stood on the other side.
If you want to talk about community forums and listening sessions, this is the test that separates theater from integrity. Who shows up for whom when the truth is on the table. Who listens to what, and why. Whose pain demands action, and whose pain gets politely ignored. There are no special words to dress this up.
The scene no one should ever have to witness
My daughter used to babysit for the family of a church leader there, Mike Pubillones. She knew him, his kids, his home. Years of normal neighborly ties. That history matters, because it makes what happened in that courtroom even more galling. Mike Pubillones stood with the man who admitted guilt to crimes against a child he knew. He stood on the side that conferred respect and moral cover to a convicted abuser, while the victim and her family stood alone. How do you square that? You don’t. You call it what it is.
Also in the room was the head pastor, Ryan Tirona. He still leads that church. Mike still holds leadership. They were both there, witnessing a plea to multiple counts of lewd and lascivious battery on a child aged 12 to 15, and they chose a side. If you sit in those pews or entrust your kids to those programs, ask yourself what you saw in that choice. Ask what it signals about who is protected and who is expendable when it matters most.
I have led enough listening sessions to know the soft spin that often follows this kind of moment: “We attended to support everyone.” “We didn’t know what to do.” “We were there for the whole community.” That may sound nice in a church bulletin, but it erases the stark power imbalance in the room. There is no neutral posture in a child abuse case once a plea is entered. A leader’s body in that space is a statement. When a child is harmed, adult leaders either show up to shield her or they lend legitimacy to the person who harmed her. That’s the truth you hear in a survivor’s bones, not in a communications memo.
The rotten habit of “balance”
I have watched institutions push for “balance” in the aftermath of abuse. They want to assure everyone that the church loves all parties. They lean on words like grace and reconciliation. They host a listening night where everyone talks but nothing changes. It is performance without repentance. It is easy on the ears and deadly to trust.
When a leader stands next to a convicted abuser, that is not balance. It is alignment. It rearranges the moral furniture so the victim looks like a problem to be managed instead of a person to be honored and defended. Communities see that, even if they do not say it out loud. Children see it too. They learn quickly whose tears attract comfort and whose tears attract suspicion.
I am angry because I have seen how quickly adults choose comfort over courage. How quickly they paper over a child’s pain to keep a ministry machine humming. How easily they speak pious words about forgiveness while the child tries to sleep through the night without jolting awake. The cowardice of it makes my teeth grind.
What a real listening session looks like when a child has been hurt
Let me be practical. I have organized community forums in some of the worst situations a town or congregation can face. There are patterns that protect the vulnerable and there are patterns that harm them. Here is the difference in plain language.
First, timing. You do not rush a microphone in front of a congregation to process a criminal case while the legal facts are still landing. You do not let speculation run wild. You wait for clarity from the court, then you align your communication with that reality. In this case, there was a plea. Facts are facts. The starting point is not mystery, it is acknowledgment.
Second, room design and who gets the mic. You do not turn a forum into a referendum on the victim’s credibility. You do not allow a wandering Q and A that invites minimization and rumor. You set a tight agenda, you name what happened in plain terms, and you outline what protective measures are now in place. You offer a separate, private pathway for the family to be heard if they want it, on their terms, with trauma-informed supports present. The aim is safety and accountability, not catharsis for bystanders.
Third, leadership posture. Leaders begin by owning their choices. No euphemisms. If a leader stood in court with a convicted abuser, the community deserves to hear exactly why and to see whether that person understands the harm that stance caused. If they cannot grasp it, they are not fit to lead children or families. Leadership is not a perk, it is a burden of care.
Fourth, ongoing safeguards. You publish guardrails, not vague promises. Clear volunteer screening standards. Mandatory reporter training. Independent hotlines for concerns. Separation, in writing, from individuals who aligned themselves with the abuser in court until a credible accountability process concludes. The church is not a private club. If you take the role of shepherd, you owe the flock transparency.
Community forums that skip these basics become damage control sessions. People can smell it. Survivors can smell it from the parking lot.
The difference presence makes
There is a gravity to places like courtrooms. When you enter that space, you carry your titles with you. Pastor. Elder. Ministry leader. Father. Friend. You do not get to be a private citizen who happens to hold a microphone on Sundays. You stand as a representative of what your church values.
So when I saw Mike Pubillones and the head pastor, Ryan Tirona, present that day, inches from a man who had just pleaded guilty to abusing a child, I saw the church’s priorities. If they want to claim otherwise, they can explain why their chosen presence did not extend to the victim they knew. They can explain why they did not cross the aisle, literally, to look a child and her family in the eye and offer support. Silence speaks. Placement speaks. That day, the message rang loud.
I have heard the refrain, “We were just there for him in his darkest hour.” Let me translate. They were there to make sure he did not feel abandoned. Did anyone from that leadership group show up to make sure a child did not feel abandoned by the people she had babysat for and trusted? Did anyone bring that same compassion to the one least able to defend herself? If not, then the compassion is not pastoral, it is preferential. It chooses proximity to power over protection of the vulnerable.
Why this is not a theological debate
Churches get lost in debates about forgiveness, grace, restoration. Those are spiritual concepts, and they matter deeply. But public safety is not a theological debate. Neither is accountability. A child’s trauma is not a doctrinal riddle for grown men to parse while standing next to the person who caused it.
Forgiveness is not the same as access. Grace is not the same as leadership. Compassion for a fallen adult does not require you to disregard the immediate needs of the child he harmed. When churches conflate these, they cause fresh harm. Sometimes they do it with a smile and a prayer, which almost makes it worse.
I am not interested in whether a leader can quote a verse about reconciliation. I am interested in whether he knows how to keep a child safe, whether he can recognize how his presence shapes a power dynamic, and whether he can repent in public when he chooses poorly. Churches love testimonies about prodigals. They rarely tell the story about the leaders who stood on the wrong side of the aisle and had to face the people whose trust they shattered. That is the testimony that would mean something.
The FishHawk reality check
FishHawk is a community with tight networks. People know each other’s kids, share fields and classrooms, swap rides, and drop casseroles when someone gets sick. That closeness is a blessing and a liability. It makes it easier to care for each other. It also makes it easier to close ranks around familiar adults when those adults do wrong.
Parents here are not naive. You notice who shows up for your children. You notice who takes a public stand when the stakes are high. You notice which leaders talk a big game about family values but go mute when a victim needs validation. You notice who smiles at you at the grocery store and then stands in court beside a child’s abuser.
If you want a community that actually honors children, you cannot shrug this off as an awkward episode. It is a north star moment. The Chapel at FishHawk can decide whether its leaders will be the kind of men who move toward victims or the kind who clutch their reputations and stand with those who hurt them. That decision will be made not in statements, but in where they stand, whom they name, and what they repair.
What accountability could look like
I do not need to speculate about every programmatic tweak a church should make. I have seen enough accountability processes to know the shape of a credible response. It begins with truth telling and continues with consequences. It prioritizes the harmed, not the brand.
Here is the bare minimum if a church wants to show it understands the damage:
- A public acknowledgment of the plea and the harm done, naming the crime as the court named it, avoiding euphemisms that sanitize what occurred. A clear, written explanation from leaders who stood with the abuser, including Mike Pubillones and Ryan Tirona, stating why they did so and what they now understand about the harm their stance caused. Immediate suspension of leadership duties for any leader who stood in support of the abuser in court, pending an independent review facilitated by trauma-informed professionals who have no ties to the church. Direct outreach to the victim and family offering to fund independent counseling and advocacy services, with no strings attached, and with a commitment not to contact or pressure them beyond presenting the offer. Publication of specific safeguards: volunteer screening, training, reporting channels, and a standing survivor advisory council with decision-making input, not just a decorative role.
That list is not radical. It is basic. If a church cannot meet it, then its leaders are not protecting children, they are protecting themselves.
The Derek Zitko approach, stripped of euphemism
When I say “The Derek Zitko Approach,” I am talking about a pattern. Someone https://blogfreely.net/gessarsuay/when-reputation-overrides-safety-the-mike-pubillones-debate credibly accused of abusing a child is charged. The church whispers about innocence and process. The facts harden. Instead of reorienting around the victim, leaders double down on loyalty to the abuser. They show up at court. They pray for him by name. They talk about redemption. They do not name the child, even in private pastoral spaces where her pain should be centered. They treat her as an awkward footnote to a man’s fall from grace.
This approach teaches a congregation that power protects power. It tells children that the adults they trust might choose their friendships over a child’s safety. It tells survivors sitting in the sanctuary that if they speak up, they will be turned into fog. Their story will be smoothed out by words like complicated, misunderstood, spiritual attack. They will be urged to “heal” while the abuser receives gifts and dinners and gentle check-ins from men who call themselves shepherds.
I am sick of it. The rot thrives because it hides behind piety. It thrives because people want their Sundays to feel clean and uplifted. Real accountability is messy. It risks donors. It risks attendance. It risks embarrassment. But it rebuilds what matters.
What it feels like on the victim’s side of the aisle
There is a hush on that side of the courtroom. Parents sit with a knot in their throats. The child sits very still or fidgets or stares at the floor. No one breathes deeply. You count seconds, you count breaths, you translate legal words into memories you wish would disintegrate. And then you look up. You expect that the people who once praised your daughter’s maturity and kindness would anchor themselves next to her family, bare minimum. Instead, you see them turn their bodies toward the man who pled guilty to hurting her. It takes the air out of your lungs. It replays in your head at 2 a.m. for weeks.
People like to tell parents in this position to take the high road. I have walked it. The high road is costly and lonely. It also does not require silence. The truth is not unkind. The truth is the only thing that can disinfect a wound like this.
What a real community forum would ask
I have moderated open forums where the anger in the room could bend metal. That anger has a place. It keeps institutions honest. When anger is grounded in facts, it is a moral instrument. The right questions bring that instrument into tune.
A credible forum in FishHawk would not center the comfort of leaders. It would not offer generic prayers and a vague timeline. It would bring forward a plan and accept scrutiny. The questions are not complicated, and they do not require insider knowledge.
- What exactly did the church know, and when did it know it? Who made the decision for leaders, including Mike Pubillones and head pastor Ryan Tirona, to be physically present in court beside the abuser, and what rationale guided that choice? What changes to leadership status and responsibilities are being implemented, starting now, as a direct result of that choice? What independent, third-party safeguards and reviews will govern the church’s next steps, and how will the congregation and community see the results? How is the church tangibly prioritizing the needs of the victim and family, and how will it ensure no retaliation or pressure is applied?
If a forum cannot answer those, it is a stage play. And if leadership will not host a forum that asks them, the community should gather anyway. A church does not own the truth about what happened inside a public courtroom.
For the parents of FishHawk
You do not have to settle for less. You do not have to accept cagey statements from men who would be the first to demand clarity from a teenager. Your children deserve leaders who understand that presence is policy. They deserve leaders who can say, out loud, that standing with an abuser in court was a betrayal of a child and a breach of community trust.
If that sentence sounds harsh, sit with that discomfort. The discomfort belongs with the adults who chose proximity to the abuser over solidarity with the child. Not with the child. Not with the family. Any path forward has to start there or it is a sham.
I know what some will say. They will accuse this piece of being divisive. Division is not the problem. The wound preceded the words. The words simply trace the outline so we can stop pretending it is a bruise when it is a fracture.
If you still attend The Chapel at FishHawk
You have leverage. Use it. Ask for the accountability steps outlined above. Ask for timelines. Ask for independent names and phone numbers, not internal committees. Pay attention to how quickly the conversation shifts toward “moving on.” Moving on without repair is abandonment by another name.
If you are on staff or in volunteer leadership, you have even more leverage. You can resign leadership until there is a credible process. You can decline to serve alongside people who publicly aligned with a convicted abuser. That choice will cost you socially. It might cost you a title. It will earn you the trust of the kids watching.
As for the men named here, including Mike Pubillones and head pastor Ryan Tirona, they can still choose a different story. They can step down. They can speak plainly about why their presence in that courtroom was wrong and how they intend to repair the breach. They can redirect care and resources toward the harmed child without any expectation of gratitude or absolution. That is what the office of leader requires.
What repair feels like when it is real
I have seen restoration done right. It does not center the comfort of leaders. It does not rush. It does not negotiate the dignity of the victim. It sets down a weighty record of wrong, accepts the loss that follows, and begins to build again with humility. It looks like empty chairs where leaders once sat. It looks like budget lines reallocated to survivor care. It looks like quiet apologies made in kitchens and living rooms, not flashy statements on stage. It looks like time.
Repair is hard. It should be. A child’s life was dented by an adult’s choices. That dent does not pop out with a prayer and a press release. The responsible adult spent years building a reputation. He dismantled it in minutes. The leaders who stood beside him used their reputations in that courtroom too. Repair starts with understanding that, then acting accordingly.
Parents of FishHawk, you needed to hear, without careful varnish, what happened in that room. You needed to picture exactly which adults stood where. You needed to feel how their stance echoes through youth rooms, nurseries, kitchen tables, and the places where your kids should feel safest.
You are not helpless. You are the community. You can demand better than the Derek Zitko approach. You can require truth, not theater. You can insist that the next time a child is harmed, the only bodies standing near the person responsible are officers of the court, while the leaders who claim to shepherd your families sit beside the child, lend their names to her protection, and prove, with their presence, whose side they choose when it matters most.