[1] His older brother, Anthony Michael Keiley, served as chief justice of the International Court of Appeals in Cairo, Egypt.

[3] After receiving his early education in Petersburg, Benjamin Keiley at age 17 joined the Confederate Army of Northern Virginia in 1864 during the American Civil War.

[5] When the war ended, Keiley worked as a law clerk before attending St. Charles College, a minor seminary for the Archdiocese of Baltimore in Ellicott City, Maryland.

He received his episcopal consecration on June 3, 1900, from Gibbons, with Bishops Henry Northrop and John J. Monaghan serving as co-consecrators, at St. Peter's Cathedral in Richmond, Virginia.

During his tenure, Keiley completely restored the Cathedral of St. John the Baptist, which had been destroyed by fire in 1898; he dedicated the new edifice in October 1900.

At the same time, he condemned U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt for inviting the African-American educator Booker T. Washington to the White House.