Francis John McConnell was an American social reformer and a bishop in the Methodist Episcopal Church, elected in 1912. Born on August 18, 1871, in Trinway, Ohio, he died on August 18, 1953, in Lucasville, Ohio. McConnell was a graduate of the Ohio Wesleyan University and the Boston University School of Theology. He was an ordained minister in the Methodist Episcopal Church for many years, serving among other places a large church in Brooklyn, New York.
Before election to the episcopacy, McConnell served as the president of DePauw University, Greencastle, Indiana, 1909-1912. During his presidency he led the university's first major fund drive, the Campaign for the Seventy-Fifth Anniversary Fund, which produced a total subscription of $550,546.
Francis John McConnell was a major second-generation advocate of Boston personalism who sought to apply the philosophy to social problems of his time. McConnell is best known for his quote "We need a type of patriotism that recognizes the virtues of those who are opposed to us".
