A funeral Mass for Father Frank Kriski, CSsR, was celebrated April 11 at St. Clement Redemptorist Chapel in Ligouri. Father Frank died April 5 at St. Clement Redemptorist Mission Community. He was 86 years old.
Frank was born on Aug. 30, 1936 in Elba, a farming community northwest of Grand Island, Nebraska. His father, Sigmund Krzycki, held President Franklin D. Roosevelt in such high esteem that he named his newborn son Franklin Dean Krzycki. (Decades later, he changed his name to the phonetic English spelling, Kriski.)
Frank was a middle child, between four older sisters and three younger brothers and a younger sister. He felt a call to the priesthood in his youth and spent a brief time in a Franciscan Seminary after he completed eighth grade, but returned home and graduated from high school. His vocation call persisted, so after his uncle introduced him to the Redemptorists in Omaha, he entered St. Joseph Preparatory College in Kirkwood. He professed temporary vows on Aug. 2, 1958 and perpetual vows on Sept. 2, 1961. He was ordained to the priesthood on July 2, 1963, shortly after Vatican II was initiated.
In his first assignments, Father Frank served in parish ministry at St. Alphonsus Parish in Chicago, St. Joseph Parish in Lebanon, Indiana, and Our Lady of Perpetual Help Redemptorist Parish in Kansas City, Missouri. He enlisted as a military chaplain in the U.S. Army and served from 1972-75, the last three years of the Vietnam War. When he returned to civilian life, he served a year as a hospital chaplain at the Veterans Hospital in St. Louis.
Father Frank resumed parish ministry in 1983 at St. Joseph Parish in Denver, where he served as a hospital chaplain at nearby Denver General Hospital. He returned to Chicago to serve at St. Michael Parish for two years, then transferred to the Vice Province of New Orleans in 1992. He joined the Redemptorist community at Holy Redeemer Parish in Odessa, Texas, until 1996, when the parish was returned to the Diocese of San Angelo.
Father Frank returned to the Denver Province in 1996 and was assigned as a hospital chaplain based at Holy Redeemer in Oakland, California. Three years later, he returned to Our Lady of Perpetual Help Redemptorist Parish in Kansas City. He was appointed pastor of nearby Our Lady of Peace Parish, a Latin Mass community, from 1999-2009, a year after his Golden Jubilee as a priest. He continued to maintain a steady schedule of travel to preach for Liguorian Magazine and Foreign Mission Appeals. He was granted full retirement status in 2017 but remained in Kansas City until health issues necessitated his move to St. Clement’s Redemptorist Mission Community in Liguori in 2022.
Burial was in the Redemptorist Cemetery in Ligouri.
