Mother 1 did not keep a copy of the letter herself, nor did she initially tell anyone that she had warned cardinals about McCarrick's conduct.
She described seeing McCarrick touch her sons' inner thighs, She said after watching that, " I said [to my husband], 'We need to get him out of our lives.' [My husband] just refused to understand."
Mother 1 said that McCarrick took a particular interest in her eldest son.
"Ted would stand behind my eldest son, who was a teenager, and rub his chest from behind, holding him close," she said in the report, echoing similar behavior reported in accusations against McCarrick made public since 2018.
The report describes how McCarrick had groomed Mother 1's sons, buying them "trinkets" and making them refer to him as "Uncle Ted" or "Unk."
McCarrick referred to the family as his own family, and gave "the impression that we were very special to him."
At one point, McCarrick arrived in a helicopter to celebrate one of Mother 1's sons' confirmations. McCarrick, who was not related to the family, referred to the boys as his nephews.
Mother 1 wrote that, over time, McCarrick took her teenage sons on overnight trips with other "nephews," where he provided them with alcohol. Mother 1, who herself did not drink, said that this was a red flag that McCarrick's motivations were not pure.
"And when they told me that they had had alcohol, I thought: this man is a danger to my sons. We were not a family that had alcohol around," said Mother 1. "And to my knowledge the boys had not had alcohol before that. He had brought beer with him on the trip. And that told me that he was a dangerous person. And that bringing alcohol was a premeditated act on his part."
She also recalled that he became possessive, saying that a teenaged son "owed him" a weekend trip, and shouldn't be going to a school dance.
One of Mother 1's sons stated that in the late-1980s, his mother had approached him about his friendship with "Ted."
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"She indicated that Ted's emotional attachment might represent something which was either injurious or could lead to harm. At first, I was taken aback, since no one [had] put such a question to me," said the son in the report. "But, to me, her motives were unimpeachable." The son stated that McCarrick had been "clingy" but that he did not view his behavior as "something either sexualized or emotionally exploitive."
Another one of Mother 1's sons confirmed that his mother told him in the early-1990s that she "was intending to go public" and accuse McCarrick of abusing her sons years ago. The son discouraged her from going public with the accusations, as "now that we are adults and long past the point where he could abuse us."
"It was not a question of dissuading my mother if she thought she had something to say," said the son. "My point was that I did not think it would be appropriate to use either my own or my older brother's experience as the reason for her decision to go public," due to the amount of time between the event and that he "didn't view what had happened as sexual."
McCarrick was not publicly accused of abusing a minor until June 20, 2018. Before that time, known allegations of abuse had concerned adult priests and seminarians, except for those allegations that were written anonymously.
Christine Rousselle is a former DC Correspondent for Catholic News Agency. Prior to working at CNA, she was the managing web editor of Townhall.com; she has a BA in political science from Providence College.