Any idea as to why my predicate keeps returning nil and crashing my app

Question

Whenever I run my code and click on a category, my app crashed and tells me that it found an error during the tableview reload line. error message

import UIKit
import CoreData

class HomeViewController: UIViewController {
    
    var itemArray = [Item]()
    
    var selectedCategory : CategoryList? {
        didSet {
            loadItems()
        }
    }
    
     let context = (UIApplication.shared.delegate as! AppDelegate).persistentContainer.viewContext
    
    @IBOutlet var tableView: UITableView!
    
    override func viewDidLoad() {
        super.viewDidLoad()
        // Do any additional setup after loading the view.            
        
        print(FileManager.default.urls(for: .documentDirectory, in: .userDomainMask))
        
        tableView.delegate = self
        tableView.dataSource = self
        
        navigationItem.title = "To Do List"
    }
    
    @IBAction func addItem(_ sender: UIBarButtonItem) {
        
        var textField = UITextField()
        
        let alert = UIAlertController(title: "Add a New Task", message: "", preferredStyle: .alert)
        
        
        let action = UIAlertAction(title: "Add Item", style: .default) { (action) in
            //what will happen once the user clicks the Add item on our alert
            
           
            
            let newItem = Item(context: self.context)
            newItem.title = textField.text!
            newItem.done = false
            newItem.parentCategory = self.selectedCategory
            self.itemArray.append(newItem)
            
            self.saveItems()
            
        }

        alert.addTextField { (alertTextField) in
            alertTextField.placeholder = "Create new Item"
            textField = alertTextField
        }
        
        alert.addAction(action)            
        
        present(alert, animated: true, completion: nil)
        
    }
    
    func saveItems() {
       
        do {
            try context.save()
        } catch {
            print("Error saving context \(error)")
        }
        self.tableView.reloadData()
    }
    
    func loadItems(with request: NSFetchRequest<Item> = Item.fetchRequest(), predicate: NSPredicate? = nil) {
        
        let categoryPredicate = NSPredicate(format: "parentCategory.name MATCHES %@", selectedCategory!.name!)
        print(categoryPredicate)
        
        if let addtionalPredicate = predicate {
            request.predicate = NSCompoundPredicate(andPredicateWithSubpredicates: [categoryPredicate, addtionalPredicate])
        } else {
            request.predicate = categoryPredicate
        }

        
        do {
            itemArray = try context.fetch(request)
        } catch {
            print("Error fetching data from context \(error)")
        }
        
        tableView.reloadData()
        
    }
    
}

extension HomeViewController: UITableViewDelegate {
    
    func tableView(_ tableView: UITableView, didSelectRowAt indexPath: IndexPath) {
        //print(itemArray[indexPath.row])
        
        itemArray[indexPath.row].done = !itemArray[indexPath.row].done
        
        saveItems()
        
        tableView.deselectRow(at: indexPath, animated: true)
    }
}

extension HomeViewController: UITableViewDataSource {
    
    func tableView(_ tableView: UITableView, numberOfRowsInSection section: Int) -> Int {
        return itemArray.count
    }
    
    func tableView(_ tableView: UITableView, cellForRowAt indexPath: IndexPath) -> UITableViewCell {
        
        let cell = tableView.dequeueReusableCell(withIdentifier: "ToDoItemCell", for: indexPath)
        
        let item = itemArray[indexPath.row]
        
        cell.textLabel?.text = item.title
        
        cell.accessoryType = item.done ? .checkmark : .none
        
        return cell
    }
}

//MARK: SearchBar Methods

extension HomeViewController: UISearchBarDelegate {
    
    func searchBarSearchButtonClicked(_ searchBar: UISearchBar) {

           let request : NSFetchRequest<Item> = Item.fetchRequest()
       
           let predicate = NSPredicate(format: "title CONTAINS[cd] %@", searchBar.text!)
           
           request.sortDescriptors = [NSSortDescriptor(key: "title", ascending: true)]
           
           loadItems(with: request, predicate: predicate)
           
       }
    
    func searchBar(_ searchBar: UISearchBar, textDidChange searchText: String) {
        if searchBar.text?.count == 0 {
            loadItems()
            
            DispatchQueue.main.async {
                searchBar.resignFirstResponder()
            }
            
        }
    }
}