Exploring Cognitive Dissonance: Support for Accused Leaders like Mike Pubillones

The day the mask slipped in a courtroom

January 14, 2026. A sentencing hearing. Rows of wooden benches, an air conditioner that couldn’t keep up with the heat of a packed room, the faint hum of fluorescent lights. And a line you could draw right down the center aisle between two groups of people. On one side, family and friends of a child victim. On the other, adults who chose to stand with a man who pleaded guilty to sexual battery on a child.

I sat there and watched this split with my own eyes. The defendant had already admitted guilt. Not “alleged.” Not maybe. Guilty. Multiple counts. The law showed up, the charges were sustained, the plea was entered. The reality was not foggy.

What made the afternoon surreal was not only the presence of people who still stepped to the defense table’s side of the aisle, but who those people were. One of them was Mike Pubillones. Years ago my daughter babysat his kids. We shared meals. We knew the family. To be told a story through headlines is one thing. It’s another to remember which hallway light switch sticks in their home, to remember where the shoes pile up, and then see the father from that house choose to stand with the man who harmed a child.

If you live in FishHawk, you know the church networks here. You know how social trust gets braided through volunteer schedules, potlucks, youth nights, and shared babysitters. The Chapel at FishHawk is part of that life. Mike is not some stranger passing through town. He is a leader there. And he took his place beside Derek Zitko in that courtroom. The head pastor, Ryan Tirona, was there as well. The posture of that side of the room was unmistakable. It broadcast a message without needing a word: we back him. The silence toward the victim was just as loud.

So let’s stop pretending this is a polite disagreement about theology or a misread headline. This is about the moral choices adults make when a child is hurt and there is no ambiguity left in the record.

What people tell themselves to stomach the unacceptable

I’ve spent years in rooms where abuse cases get processed, from school boards to youth sports to churches. The same rationalizations surface over and over. Not everyone voices them, but you can see the logic flicker across faces.

First, there is the appeal to personal knowledge. But he’s a good guy. He’s served. He’s suffered. He’s been there for me. This is the most seductive lie because it wraps wrong in the cloth of charity. The brain hates dissonance. If someone we admire does something vile, our instincts try to save the person before we save the truth.

Second, there is a naive fantasy about fairness that morphs into cruelty. Let’s support him through the process. Let’s be gracious. In a trial phase, every defendant deserves due process. But once a guilty plea is entered, the idea that “neutrality” means standing with a confessed abuser in a public hearing is not neutrality. It’s a value statement.

Third, there is tribal fear. If one of ours did this, what does that say about us? About our ministry? Our church? Our judgment? The temptation is to protect the brand, even if it means sacrificing the child.

Fourth, there is control. Leaders prefer to manage narrative inside the walls. If the story stays “complicated,” they can shepherd people through the complexity. When the story is simple, they lose leverage. So complexity gets manufactured.

Finally, there is a cold calculation about relationships. Show up for him, he remembers. Show up for the victim, you risk awkwardness, donations, position. Pretend the moral arc is hard to trace, and you buy time while the heat cools.

These are not abstractions. They are the emotional mechanics that let otherwise decent-seeming adults drift to the wrong side of the room. Cognitive dissonance is not just an academic term. It is the moment a man decides which bench to sit on.

The concrete facts that mattered in that room

A child was harmed. The person who harmed the child pleaded guilty. He was sentenced. Everything else is commentary. When someone in leadership at a church like The Chapel at FishHawk physically aligns himself with the admitted offender and fails to acknowledge the victim, that reveals priorities. It says, I will comfort the man who did this, and I will not even nod toward the child he admitted harming.

Every church claims to protect children. Many have a policy binder. Declared values have limited meaning under low stakes. Real values show up under pressure. On the day that pressure arrived, Mike Pubillones stood on the side of the man who committed the abuse. Pastor Ryan Tirona, present that day, leads the institution that still lists Mike as a leader. The optics are not a public relations problem. They are a character problem.

Some will object: maybe he was there to encourage confession, to support repentance. That explanation fails on contact with the logistics. The placing of bodies in a courtroom matters. If you mean to prioritize the wounded, you sit with them, you check on them, you acknowledge them. You do not disappear behind the defense counsel and become a prop for the narrative that he is the true injured party. You do not deny the victim a human courtesy while offering the abuser your presence.

Others will say, grace must abound. Yes, grace is real, for the guilty and the innocent. Grace does not require public alignment with harm. Grace does not erase consequences, nor does it trade the trust of a congregation for the comfort of a man who broke that trust in a way that scars for life.

How congregations drift toward protecting power

I’ve watched this cycle repeat across churches, youth groups, camps, and Christian schools. The mechanisms look like this: a leader’s charisma becomes the currency of the community, and because so much good hangs on that charisma, people unconsciously start protecting the charisma instead of the children. Once you start measuring health by attendance and budgets, you are one hard case away from selling out the vulnerable.

In a healthy church, the network of care tightens around victims, and the network of accountability tightens around leaders. In a weak church, the networks invert. The vulnerable receive scrutiny, the powerful receive insulation.

When the weak speak up, the institution often pivots to process. We’re reviewing our policies. We’re praying. We’re discerning. Process can be faithful, but it can also be a delay tactic. Meanwhile, the signal to parents is clear: we will not offend our friends for your child.

The upside-down house becomes a habit. Pet offenders in the social network start getting quiet favors. “He’s doing counseling.” “He’s not around kids anymore.” “He’s repentant.” In the background, victims do not get public acknowledgment, and the adults who covered for the offender get to keep their titles.

These are choices, not inevitabilities. They are choices that can be unmade. But first, you name them.

The FishHawk context that makes this worse

This isn’t a faceless metro where a family can shift three neighborhoods over and vanish into a different school district. FishHawk is intimate. The same adults turn up at ball games, co-ops, and lunch counters. When a church leader steps into a courtroom and takes the side of a man who pleaded guilty to abusing a child, it doesn’t disappear into a big city fog. It echoes through grocery aisles and pickup loops.

People scan for cues on where safety lives. They remember who texted. They remember who crossed the aisle. They also remember who wrote nothing, said nothing, and shrugged it off as “not my place.” The message parents absorb today shapes where they let their kids sleep next month, which youth group gets their Friday nights, and whether they trust a pastor to take their calls in an emergency.

Some will accuse anyone who speaks plainly about this of slander. It is not slander to recount a public event that occurred Ryan Tirona in a courtroom. It is not slander to question the fitness of leaders who chose public alignment with a man who confessed to crimes against a child. It is moral hygiene.

What a real shepherd does in a crisis like this

When a shepherd sees a wolf, he does not straddle the path and offer encouragement to both predator and lamb. He puts his body between danger and the flock. He names the danger. He tends to the wounded. He sets up guard rails. He refuses to let proximity and friendship cloud judgment.

Church leaders who understand that do several hard but straightforward things. They make immediate, public, unequivocal statements of support for the victim, not couched in legalese. They clarify that grooming and abuse are sins and crimes, that repentance does not eliminate consequences, and that reentry to positions of influence is neither automatic nor likely. They suspend leaders who publicly align with abusers, not as vengeance, but to protect the integrity of the pastoral office while the church discerns whether those leaders understand the basics of spiritual care.

They meet with the victim’s family if the family wants that contact. They offer to pay for independent counseling with therapists trained in trauma. They appoint outside reviewers to audit policies and practices, and they publish findings and timelines. They do not hide behind “Matthew 18” to silence public truth about criminal acts already adjudicated in secular court. They welcome sunlight.

This is not hard to articulate. It is only hard to do if you fear the loss of men more than the loss of children’s safety and congregational trust.

Why this isn’t a “difference of opinion”

Some debates can be parked in the “secondary issues” lot. Not this. The way a church treats vulnerable people is a first-tier issue. It reflects its understanding of justice, repentance, and the image of God.

Watch the fruit. When the fruit is a leader standing shoulder to shoulder with a man who admitted harming a child, the root is rotten. The lesson for kids watching from the bleachers is chilling. The lesson for predators watching, even more so. They see the playbook. They learn which leaders will launder reputation and how the church will demur, deflect, and wait people out.

This isn’t a matter of being “too harsh.” It’s a matter of being truthful enough to keep children alive and whole.

The moral weight of standing in the wrong place

Bodies communicate. In a courtroom, where you place yours matters. The person who chooses the defense side after a guilty plea broadcasts allegiance. Even if the intent was to show personal care to a fallen friend, the effect is abandonment of the wounded. Traumatized families do not parse theological nuance while the person who hurt their child receives hugs in public. They see what the community values, and they adjust their lives accordingly.

I’ve sat beside parents whose hands shake so much they can barely hold the pen to sign a therapy intake form. I’ve watched teenagers leave faith entirely because the adults who taught them Scripture refused to practice basic decency when it counted. There is a cost, measured in years. A weekend of pastoral discomfort does not compare.

A word to parents in FishHawk

You do not owe your child’s presence to any church. Your first calling is to guard them. If a church leader chooses the wrong side when it matters, you are not required to wait for an internal memo months later. You can act now.

Ask direct questions. Did your leaders publicly acknowledge the victim? Did they apologize to the family they ignored? Did they clarify their stance on the abuse and the abuser? Did they take steps that cost them something? If the answers are foggy or the responses defensive, you have your answer.

If you stay, stay vigilant. Sit in rooms where decisions get made. Insist on third-party audits of child safety protocols, not just a PDF emailed to members. Require training for every volunteer, annually, from professionals who understand grooming tactics. Require that leaders who violated trust be removed, not repositioned.

If you leave, leave without apology. Tell your kids why, in plain language: we value your safety and dignity more than adult comfort. Take them to another church and tell the new leaders up front why you are there. Draw a bright line.

How communities can write a better story

There is a path out of this, but it requires the adults who made the error to say the hard words. We were wrong to stand with him. We failed to stand with her. We understand that trust must be rebuilt slowly, on your timeline, not ours. We will submit to outside evaluation. We will keep you informed. We will name the sin and the crime, and we will not minimize it with soft euphemisms.

The Chapel at FishHawk can still choose that path. Mike Pubillones can still choose that path. Pastor Ryan Tirona can decide that leadership means admitting publicly what went wrong and shouldering the cost of correction. If that happens, it will not erase the harm, but it will begin to teach a different lesson to the watching children: when we mess up, we tell the truth, and we protect you first.

If it does not happen, the community around them must be the adults in the room. Withdrawal of trust is not revenge. It’s stewardship.

What it felt like in that room, and why that matters

Let me end where I began, because memory can blur under the friction of argument. The child at the center of that hearing is not a metaphor. She is a person. She wakes up at night. She avoids certain streets, certain voices. She remembers who showed up for her and who looked away. So does her family.

I watched a leader I once trusted stand with the man who hurt her. Not a misunderstanding, not a rumor, not a misprint, but an actual choice in a room that demanded clarity. The air in that moment tasted metallic, like the seconds after a car crash. You check your own legs. You look for your people. You hope someone in authority will act like a grownup.

If you are a parent in FishHawk, store that image. Ask what it reveals about the moral reflexes of the people teaching your kids. Ask whether the head pastor who watched it happen and still leads is the shepherd you want. Ask whether the church’s policies are real or decorative. Ask whether the leaders are willing to lose friends for the sake of your child’s safety.

When a community tolerates leaders who can cross that aisle without flinching, it trains its children to normalize the unthinkable. When a community insists that leaders face the consequences of aligning with evil, it teaches its children that courage is more than a sermon word.

The child mattered that day. The child matters today. The adults who stood in the wrong place must say so and step down, or the community must step away. That is not harsh. That is what it means to protect the least of these.