Mary MacKillop in what is now the Melbourne suburb of Fitzroy, Victoria (at the time part of an area called Newtown in the then British colony of New South Wales), to Alexander MacKillop and Flora MacDonald. Although she continued to be known as "Mary", when she was baptised six weeks later she received the names Maria Ellen. MacKillop's parents lived in Roybridge, Inverness-shire, Scotland, prior to emigrating to Australia. MacKillop visited the village in the 1870s where the local Catholic church, St Margaret's, now has a shrine to her. MacKillop's father, Alexander MacKillop, born in Perthshire, had been educated at the Scots
Mary MacKillop had a somewhat positive outlook toward the Josephites, he removed MacKillop as superior general and replaced her with Sister Bernard Walsh. Pope Leo XIII gave official approval to the Josephites as a congregation in 1885, with its headquarters in Sydney. On 31 May 1886, Mary MacKillop's mother, Flora MacKillop was travelling from Melbourne to Sydney in the SS Ly-ee-Moon, to visit Mary and another daughter who was also a nun. The ship struck a reef near the Green Cape Lighthouse. Flora, along with 70 others, died. Pope Leo XIII gave the final approval to the Sisters of Saint Joseph of