Concordia community mourns the passing of Father Emmett ‘Pops’ Johns

At 60, after 40 years of serving as a priest in various Montreal parishes, Father Johns started feeling less fulfilled by his church duties. So at a time when most people are preparing for retirement, he borrowed $10,000, bought a second-hand Winnebago and hit the streets to hand out food and comfort to those who needed it.

Today, close to 30 years after the Concordia graduate founded Le Bon Dieu dans la rue, the ecumenical organization is thriving as an emergency shelter, youth centre, medical clinic, school and 17-unit apartment building. It provides counselling to young parents, psychological help, employment guidance and, perhaps most importantly, friendship. It has literally saved thousands of lives.

“My heart is full of hope for these youth,” Father Johns, known to everyone as just “Pops,” once said.

“I know very well that there are limits to what I can do. I can’t save them all. But when I think of Lise, Johnny, Daniel, Molly and so many others, I realize that after every dark and difficult night — even the worst ones — there is a new day and a morning filled with hope.”

“Father Johns was certainly a Great Concordian — and also a great Montrealer and Canadian, a truly inspirational figure,” says Concordia President Alan Shepard. “He selflessly committed himself to the less advantaged. Over nearly three decades, tens of thousands of young people have benefitted from Father Johns’s vision and commitment to the community.”

“Father Johns took the Jesuit educational philosophy of ‘a man for others’ to higher level. We all mourn his loss,” says Bram Freedman, Concordia’s vice-president of Advancement and External Relations. “Although he has sadly passed on, fortunately his outstanding legacy will continue.”

“He destigmatized the problem of homeless youth,” Étienne Lalonde, a spokesperson for Dans la rue, told the Montreal Gazette. “Before Pops, no one talked about it.”

From simple beginnings

In his later years, Father Johns could certainly have been included in lists of prominent Montrealers, along with Oscar Peterson and Leonard Cohen. Yet he came from simple beginnings.

He was born in Montreal April 3, 1928, to Irish immigrants Mona Guilfoyle and Matthias Johns, a longshoreman who worked out of the Port of Montreal.

He grew up with his older sister, Mary Frances, on Resther St., between St. Hubert and St. André streets in Montreal’s Plateau district.

Even though he was born just before the Depression, he said he wasn’t affected by it. In fact, in his biography They Call Me “Pops” (2011), he claims the family was rather spoiled with a backyard, their own home and even a car.

His stay-at-home mother attended mass every morning, while his father said going once a month was enough for him. Father Johns became interested in the priesthood while attending high school, yet dreamed of being a missionary.

He worked as chaplain to a detention home for young women and a youth-protection centre in Montreal’s West Island between 1959 and 1967.

Victims of youth protection system

When he established Dans la rue in 1988 he became somewhat of a saviour to the kids who end up on the streets — many of whom have been stuck in the revolving doors of foster care until age 18, when they’re expected to suddenly fend for themselves with virtually no safety net.

Many turned to the readily identifiable white Dans la rue van where, for many years, the cherubic face with the white goatee of Father Johns was a welcome site. He’d be there most evenings, in his ball cap and red woollen vest, along with some loyal volunteers until about 3:30 a.m., handing out hotdogs, hot drinks, clothing, counselling and love to up to 350 homeless youth on any given night.

There were struggles in those early days. At one point, Father Johns worried the Winnebago would be yanked off the street when its insurance wasn’t renewed because of too many claims. Once its driver accidentally crashed into a building and another time it was struck by a car running a red light.