CHICAGO (IL)
Chicago Sun-Times [Chicago IL]
May 1, 2025
By Robert Herguth
[Includes a brief video reflection by reporter Robert Herguth about survivor Robert Krankvich and the dangers that all survivors face. Herguth has been reporting on clergy sexual abuse in Chicago and in the religious orders for years. Photo above: Robert Krankvich, shown as a child, at left, and after he joined the Marine Corps as a young man. Provided]
Robert Krankvich sued the church in 2018, saying the Rev. Richard McGrath raped him while he was a student at Providence Catholic High School in the 1990s. The Augustinian priest was a leader. there Krankvich’s family says that trauma led to addiction issues that fueled serious health problems.
A far southwest suburban man has died at age 43, a year and a half after reaching a $2 million settlement with the Catholic church over a lawsuit alleging he was sexually assaulted as a student by an Augustinian priest who ran Providence Catholic High School in the 1990s.
Robert Krankvich’s death in April appears to have been the result of dire health problems brought on by years of drug and alcohol abuse, according to family who believe those troubles stemmed from the sexual abuse he faced from the Rev. Richard McGrath at the New Lenox school.
“He was running from his demons,” Krankvich’s father, also named Robert, says. “He was using that stuff to mask his hurt and pain.”
“Money doesn’t bring happiness . . . it gave him no closure.”
While many victims of clergy sex abuse opt to remain anonymous, Krankvich decided to put his name out there and partake in a news conference with his attorneys when they filed suit in 2018.
The Crest Hill resident said at the time he wanted to do that in the hopes of fighting the stigma that many victims unfortunately feel, and give emotional support to anyone else.
“I’ve decided to come forward because I’ve been living in shame and in guilt for my entire adult life,” Krankvich said. “I’ve battled addiction. I’ve . . . tried hurting myself many times because I can’t deal with the pain and all of the shame and the guilt that comes forward every day when I think about this.”
Years later, after the case was settled, Krankvich told the Chicago Sun-Times that, if he could speak to McGrath, he’d ask: “Why? Why me?”
Church leaders these days sometimes portray the church’s decades-long sex abuse scandal as old news. But Krankvich’s allegations gave evidence of more contemporary offenders, as McGrath remained at Providence until being sidelined in 2017 amid a child pornography investigation.
Krankvich’s case and the pornography allegations — in which a student reported seeing the image of a nude boy on McGrath’s phone — also highlighted the secretive nature of the Augustinians.
For years, they were one of the more prominent Catholic orders to refuse to release a public list of their sex offenders — even as other church officials and reformers demanded transparency from Catholic groups in the name of healing and atonement.
The order’s handling of sex abuse complaints has been under renewed scrutiny because an Augustinian from Chicago, Cardinal Robert Prevost, is helping choose the next pope and has been mentioned as a longshot successor to Pope Francis. Prevost once ran the Chicago-based province that includes Providence and St. Rita High School on the South Side, and was the order’s international leader for years.
Under pressure, province leaders released a public list of alleged offenders in 2024 but kept McGrath’s name off, saying the accusations against him “were not established” according to their own guidelines.
McGrath — who couldn’t be reached — was questioned under oath about accusations in the lawsuit that he raped Krankvich as a teen. He insisted he never engaged in “any unlawful, immoral or sexually improper conduct with any student.”
McGrath was also asked whether he had ever viewed child porn while president of Providence. He declined to answer, citing his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination.
The suit was settled with Krankvich on the eve of a civil trial in late 2023. The church admitted no wrongdoing in agreeing to the $2 million payout, a fairly standard provision in these types of cases.
It’s not uncommon for church sex abuse victims to die young, with some killing themselves through suicide or slow-motion means such as substance abuse, says Marc Pearlman, one of Krankvich’s lawyers.
In publishing their list last year, the Augustinians wrote they are “profoundly sorrowful over the harm any minor has suffered as the result of sexual abuse perpetrated by any of our brothers. We also recognize and admire the courage of those who have come forward and who call us to respond with compassion and understanding to their pain. We continue to encourage any victims/survivors of sexual abuse to come forward.”
Ken Kaczmarz, who was sexually abused by another Augustinian at a Southwest Side parish in the 1980s, says of the emotional pain suffered by survivors, “It’s never over.”
He called Krankvich “as brave as it gets.”
Kaczmarz says when he first came forward with his own accusations two decades ago, he was brushed off by the Augustinians and the Archdiocese of Chicago, the arm of the church for Cook and Lake counties.
The abuse crisis has also contributed to declining participation in the church in the U.S. and beyond, playing a role in members leaving the faith and in the numerous parish closures in the Chicago region and elsewhere.
Krankvich’s father was Catholic but says, “I have lost all faith in religion.”
The younger Krankvich “was on and off” with sobriety, doing “well for a while” and “seeking help and getting help,” but then “he’d go back to the drugs and alcohol.”
Among other health problems, he had heart trouble and sclerosis of the liver, and was found dead in his home April 11, his father says.
Toxicology tests are pending, so a formal determination on his death hasn’t been announced, according to police.
Leaders of the Augustinians didn’t respond to requests for comment. They held their annual gala at the Drake Hotel downtown last weekend, an event that in the past has been known to raise around $250,000 in support of “Augustinian vocations and men in formation, the retired and infirm friars, and our missions in Peru.”
Some donors to the event posted tributes online, with one couple indicating their gift was in “gratitude for the great mission carried out at Providence Catholic High School by the Augustinians.”