Benjamin Joseph Keiley

Benjamin Keiley was born in Petersburg, Virginia, to John D. and Margaret (née Crowley) Keiley, who were both natives of Cork County, Ireland.[1] His older brother, Anthony Michael Keiley, served as mayor of Richmond (1871–1876) and, after his unsuccessful nominations by President Grover Cleveland as U.S. Envoy to Italy and Austria, served as chief justice of the International Court of Appeals in Cairo, Egypt.[2] Receiving his early education in Petersburg, Benjamin entered the Confederate Army of Northern Virginia in 1864.[3]

He attended St. Charles College in Ellicott City, Maryland before furthering his studies in Rome at the Pontifical North American College in 1869.[3]

Upon his return to Virginia, Keiley was ordained to the priesthood on December 31, 1873.[4] He then served as pastor of St. Peter's Church in New Castle, Delaware until 1880, when he became rector of the pro-cathedral at Wilmington.[3]

When Bishop Thomas A. Becker was transferred to the Diocese of Savannah in 1886, Keiley accompanied him to Georgia and there served as vicar general and pastor of Immaculate Conception Church in Atlanta until 1896.[1] He was rector of the Cathedral of St. John the Baptist from 1896 to 1900.[3]

On April 2, 1900, Keiley was appointed by Pope Leo XIII to succeed the late Becker as the seventh Bishop of Savannah.[4] He received his episcopal consecration on the following June 3 from Cardinal James Gibbons, with Bishops Henry Pinckney Northrop and John J. Monaghan serving as co-consecrators, at St. Peter's Cathedral in Richmond.[4]

During his tenure, he 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.[5] Keiley publicly criticized President Theodore Roosevelt for inviting Booker T. Washington to the White House, and once stated, "In America no black man should be ordained. Just as illegitimate sons are declared irregular by canon law...so blacks can be declared irregular because they are held in such contempt by whites."[6]

In 1921, a member of The Catholic Laymen’s Association of Georgia wrote a letter to President Harding. The author of the letter enclosed a newspaper clipping from the Columbia Sentinel, which was published in Harlem, Georgia from 1882 until 1924. The article was a news account of The National Congress of Mothers, who had filed a plea with Washington in April of 1921 on the topic of 65,000 girls who they claimed were missing. The author of the letter wrote that he believed most of these girls were being held captive by Catholic priests and that “a score or more” were being held captive by Bishop Keiley, in a building named The House of the Good Shepherd, in Savannah Georgia. He wrote that under Georgia law, “slave pens” were required to be inspected by officers of the court in Chatham County, but Bishop Keiley had refused to let his pen be inspected. The author wrote that Bishop Keiley claimed he only took orders from Rome, and did not have to follow other laws. By the date of the letter, slavery had been outlawed. The author wrote, “Catholic Priests have no right to lure innocent girls into captivity, where they become victims of Priestly immorality.” The letter to President Harding is stored in the peonage files at The National Archives in Washington DC. [7]

After twenty-one years as Bishop, he resigned due to ill health on March 18, 1922; he was appointed Titular Bishop of Scilium on the same date.[4]

Keiley later died in Atlanta, aged 77. At his funeral Mass, his bier was draped with a Confederate flag with a laurel wreath sent by the United Daughters of the Confederacy at the foot.[8]