Early on in her project of founding these Australia-wide Josephite sisters, Mary MacKillop had met opposition from several bishops, who refused to allow them the freedom from direct diocesan control that the Catholic Church had recommended for the new institute.
It was during this period of confusion that Josephites came to the Wellington Diocese (which at that time included Whanganui) through the intervention of an Irish Marist priest, Father Charles Kirk, who had ministered in Sydney and there learned of this home-grown congregation that was tackling the problem of the education of Catholic children, especially in outback Australia.
Father Kirk had spent about three years as an assistant at St Patrick's Marist church in central Sydney before moving on to be appointed Rector at Whanganui in 1875.
[2] Eventually a new convent and large secondary boarding and day school for girls was built on St John's Hill, Wanganui.
It carried on the name of the original school which had been built in the centre of Whanganui when the sisters arrived, Sacred Heart Convent.