A 25-YEAR-OLD youth worker from Northern Ireland was expected to reach the Italian city of Turin this week as he approached the final stages of a marathon pilgrimage for peace.
Patrick Jordan left Belfast at the end of April at the start of a walk which is due to end in Assisi at the beginning of August. He is carrying a cross made of builders' nails, a symbol of forgiveness and reconciliation. He has been to Dublin and then through England to France. Latest reports indicate that he had reached the Alps.
He has been working for the past year with the Methodist Belfast Central Mission, where he has pioneered a new scheme working with unemployed young people.
His original aim was simply. to symbolise the longing for peace in Northern Ireland. However. many people expressed their desire to be associated with the venture and the day before he left he agreed to a suggestion that he should be sponsored. Subsequently many parishes in England and Ireland have offered their support including St Boniface's. Crediton and the Catholic chaplaincies at the universities of Kent. Exeter. Durham and Oxford.
Patrick was brought up in Lancashire and went to St Anselm's school, Liverpool. After gaining four high grade A levels, he spent a year teaching in West Africa before returning to train as a butcher at Tranmere abbattoir.
In 1976 he went to Durham University to read philosophy and psychology. After completing his degree he spent a year as a lay worker in Lower Broughton. Salford.
In September he is due to go to Heythrop College in London to read for a Master of Theoldgy degree in pastoral theology.