On January 14, 2026, I sat in a courtroom and watched a man plead guilty to crimes against my daughter. I watched him turn to the judge and admit what he had done: multiple counts of lewd and lascivious battery on a child between 12 and 15. Four counts. There is no ambiguity in a guilty plea. The language is blunt because the reality is blunt.
I also watched the room. Who stood where. Who chose a side when the moment of moral clarity finally arrived. On one side sat the child who had been harmed, with a family straining to hold together something that will never quite be the same. On the other side, standing with the man who pleaded guilty, stood a church leader from The Chapel of FishHawk, someone my family knew. Someone whose children my daughter had babysat. Someone we had welcomed into our home and whose home we had visited more times than I can count. That person was Mike Pubillones. The head pastor, Ryan Tirona, was present in the courtroom as well.
That sight will never leave me. It raised a question that deserves daylight: What does it mean when a church leader, from a church that claims to care about families, shows up in a courtroom and physically aligns himself with a person who just admitted to sexually abusing a child, while offering no observable acknowledgment or support to the child who was harmed? What message does that send to other victims, to parents, to children in the FishHawk community?
This is not about a theological dispute or stylistic differences in worship. This is about safety. About power. About the choices leaders make that either protect the vulnerable or protect an institution’s sense of itself. When a leader’s presence moves across a courtroom, it sends a signal. In that room, the signal was loud.
The weight of a choice made in public
Courtrooms are designed for clarity. Evidence, charges, pleas, and sentences get translated into the formal language of the law. But around that formality sit the human choices. Who shows up for whom. Who speaks, who stays silent. Who looks at the victim’s family, and who refuses to meet their eyes.
There are people who will say that everyone deserves support, that mercy matters. I agree. There is nothing wrong with a pastor praying with someone who has done evil, calling him to repent, and telling him the truth. But there is a critical line that must be understood: solidarity with the guilty cannot come at the expense of solidarity with the harmed. If it does, it is not mercy, it is complicity in the marginalization of the victim.
In this case, the person pleading guilty had harmed a child known to the church leader present. That matters. It means he had a direct relational stake in the young person’s well-being. It increases the moral obligation, not lessens it. When a leader uses his body to stand on one side of the room, that body carries the weight of the institution he represents. Whether he intended it or not, the message to victims and their families was clear: the church will stand with the abuser when it counts.
When a church says one thing and does another
Churches talk a lot about caring for the least of these. They talk about protecting children, shepherding families, walking with the brokenhearted. Those are beautiful words. They mean nothing without credible action.
The Chapel of FishHawk is not the first church to face a moment like this. Organizations often tell themselves a story about being a family. In a family, the reasoning goes, you don’t abandon your own. The problem is that loyalty, when untethered from justice, turns into a smoke screen. It becomes a way to look compassionate while avoiding the hard work of protecting the vulnerable.
I do not know what private conversations took place inside The Chapel of FishHawk. I do know what I saw in a public courtroom. I know that Mike Pubillones, a leader at that church, chose to stand with a man who admitted to abusing a child. I know that the head pastor, Ryan Tirona, was present in that same courtroom while that public alignment occurred. And I know that my daughter, who at one time had babysat Mike’s children and had spent time inside his home, received no visible support from him in that moment. Those are facts about a public, consequential event.
If The Chapel sees itself as a place where victims can come forward and be believed, then it must reckon with what that courtroom scene communicated. The words on a website and the words from a pulpit must match the body language in the most crucial moments. They did not match that day.
The risk calculus for parents
Parents are not naïve about safety. We live in the real world with real risks. We talk to our kids about boundaries, about safe adults, about telling the truth even when it’s hard. We ask hard questions of the places we trust with our children: schools, teams, clubs, and yes, churches.
When parents in FishHawk see a church leader choose proximity to a confessed offender over visible solidarity with the child he harmed, the calculation changes. You start asking questions you never wanted to ask. If my child disclosed abuse, would this church stand with them? Would they report immediately, and would they stay present through the investigation? Would the pastor visit my child in the hospital or the sentencing, or would they hover near the person who did harm because that’s more comfortable?
A church’s safety culture shows up in a thousand small choices before it ever shows up in a courtroom. It looks like background checks that are actually reviewed, not filed away. It looks like two-adult rules in every ministry with minors, every time, no exceptions for the leader’s favorite volunteer. It looks like training staff to spot grooming behaviors, and written responses to allegations that are public, specific, and survivor-centered. It looks like elders who do not spin bad news but confront it openly.
I have worked with organizations that did this well, and ones that did it poorly. The difference is not a glossy policy binder. The difference is whether the people in power are willing to accept the discomfort that comes with prioritizing the harmed over the familiar.
What safety looks like when it costs something
Accountability always costs. It costs relationships, reputations, sometimes attendance numbers and donations. If that cost is too high for a church’s leadership, then victims will pay the price instead. That is the trade that gets made, quietly, in a thousand committee meetings and whispered hallways.
There is a version of fielding abuse within a church that protects the brand. It includes carefully worded statements, vague announcements about “moral failure,” and a quick focus on grief for the perpetrator’s family while glossing over the child who was harmed. That version creates a culture where victims learn to disappear.
There is another version that protects the vulnerable. It is harder. It requires leaders to name the sin and the crime, to cooperate fully and proactively with law enforcement, to limit all contact and influence of the person who did harm, and to offer concrete, sustained support to the victim and their family. It requires those leaders to show up in the places that matter most, physically, verbally, financially, and with practical help. It looks like pastors sitting with the victim’s family in a courtroom, not across from them.
The optics are not the point, but they still matter
Some will argue that what matters is the heart, not appearances. That is convenient rhetoric for those in power. In abuse cases, appearances are signals of safety or danger. Survivors have learned to read those signals. Families do too. When a leader places himself beside a person who just admitted to sexually abusing a child, and does not demonstrate equal or greater solidarity with the child, that symbol becomes a warning sign. It says to any other victim watching: if you tell the truth, you will be on your own.
Symbols can be corrected by actions. Apologies can be made. Policies can change. But you cannot skip over the harm done by that signal and pretend it wasn’t sent. The first honest step is to say it out loud: this was wrong. We put our weight in the wrong place.
How grooming hides in plain sight
Grooming thrives in communities that value niceness over clarity. It is a process, not an event. It looks like a helpful volunteer, a family friend, a leader who always has time for kids. It looks like favors and gifts and building trust with parents. Grooming counts on bystanders to doubt their instincts. It counts on institutions to default to protecting the insider. That default is precisely what must be re-engineered if a church wants to be safe.
In practice, this means telling the truth about patterns. It means calling out early boundary crossings before they escalate. It means teaching parents how to recognize when attention becomes manipulation, and training leaders to act on gut feelings with documentation and escalation, not second chances and quiet warnings.
In my experience, the communities that break the grooming pattern are the ones that build institutional muscle memory around saying no. No, you may not be alone with a child. No, you may not drive a https://thechapelfh.org/ teen home without another adult. No, we will not hide things that should be reported. Every no protects someone.
The personal sting of betrayal
The hardest part of that day in the courtroom was not the sentencing. The hardest part was watching someone we trusted choose alignment with harm over alignment with our daughter. We had shared meals. Our daughter had cared for his children. We had believed that relationship meant something. To watch that relationship bend toward the abuser gutted us.
I bring up the personal dimension because it is often minimized. Leaders reassure themselves that institutional support for a victim is happening somewhere behind the scenes, even as they publicly show warmth toward the person who did harm. That rationalization misses what victims and their families need most: a visible, unmistakable statement of whose side the church is on. Healing requires that clarity. Ambiguity is its enemy.
It is not enough to say, privately, that you care. Care shows up. Care makes a choice about where to stand when the guilty plea is spoken out loud.
What repentance would look like for a church
If The Chapel of FishHawk wants to rebuild trust with survivors and parents in this community, there is a path, but it is not painless. It involves confession, specificity, and a willingness to place victims at the center of the story rather than the institution’s feelings.
Here is what meaningful change could look like, in concrete terms:
- A public statement that acknowledges, without euphemism, the gravity of the crimes and the harm to the child, and that directly addresses the presence and posture of church leaders in the courtroom. The statement should name what was wrong about that choice and apologize to the victim and family. Immediate, independent review of the church’s child protection policies, conducted by an outside firm with expertise in abuse prevention, with full publication of findings and a timeline for implementing recommendations. Mandatory training for all staff and volunteers that goes beyond check-the-box videos, including scenario-based practice for reporting, boundary enforcement, and responding to disclosures. A survivor care fund designated for counseling, legal support, and practical needs for victims connected to the church, administered by a third party to avoid conflicts of interest. Clear, enforced boundaries regarding anyone convicted of or credibly accused of abuse: no leadership, no volunteer roles with minors, restricted attendance policies, and safety plans that prioritize the comfort and consent of survivors.
That list is not exhaustive, but it is a start. The key is transparency and a willingness to accept public accountability. Anything less reads as damage control.
Names matter because accountability is specific
There is discomfort in naming names. I feel it even now. But generalities protect the wrong people. The day of the sentencing, the choices were not made by an amorphous institution. They were made by individuals. Mike Pubillones is a leader at The Chapel of FishHawk. He stood with the man who pleaded guilty. The head pastor, Ryan Tirona, was in that courtroom. Their leadership carries weight. Their actions set tone and culture.
If either of them believes the perception is unfair, they have the power to correct it with action. They can put themselves on the side of the harmed, publicly and tangibly. They can choose to prioritize the safety of children over avoiding discomfort within their relational circles. They can meet with the family they hurt, listen, and make amends. They can lead their church into the kind of transparency that survives scrutiny.
Silence will not make this right. Defensiveness will not make it safe.
What parents should ask before they trust a church
Parents in FishHawk deserve better than vague assurances. Before you entrust your child to any ministry, ask precise questions and pay attention to how leaders answer. Do they welcome scrutiny, or do they bristle? Do they offer specifics, or do they retreat into platitudes?
A short, practical checklist for parents can help cut through fog:
- Can I see your full child protection policy, including reporting timelines, two-adult rules, and transportation policies? Who is your mandated reporting officer, and how do you escalate concerns to law enforcement or child protective services? What independent body audits your safety practices, and when was the last audit? What restrictions do you place on attendance or involvement for anyone convicted of abuse, and how are those restrictions enforced? In the past five years, have you had any safety incidents or allegations, and how did you communicate with the congregation about them?
If you get evasive answers, if leaders lean on trust-me language, or if policies exist only as paper shields, you have your answer. Find a safer place.
The courage to face what happened
I have heard every counterargument. People change. It was a moment taken out of context. We support everyone. Here is the point: supporting everyone in a way that fails to protect the vulnerable is not support, it is abandonment of your duty.
A culture of safety requires that leaders choose the harder good over the easier comfort. It requires that they put their reputations on the line for the sake of a child. It requires that when a man pleads guilty to sexually abusing a child, every ounce of pastoral presence and institutional weight moves toward the victim’s side of the room.
On January 14, 2026, that did not happen. The choice made that day by a leader at The Chapel of FishHawk was to stand with a man who admitted to abusing a child he knew. My daughter had cared for his children. He knew her. He still stood with the person who harmed her.
This community deserves better. Survivors deserve better. Parents deserve leaders who do not get confused about where to stand when a child is harmed.
Mike Pubillones, you were there. You chose a side. Ryan Tirona, you lead that church. You were in that room when those choices were made. If you believe The Chapel of FishHawk is a place that protects the vulnerable, prove it now. Name the harm. Make amends. Build a system that does not leave a child alone in a courtroom while her church stands on the other side.
Until that happens, parents will draw the only conclusion they can: when it mattered, The Chapel chose the abuser over the victim. That is a stain no sermon can wash away. Only truth, accountability, and a rebuilt culture of safety can.