A soccer-loving nun from Brazil is believed to have become the world’s oldest living person at nearly 117 after the recent death of a woman from Japan.
Sister Inah Canabarro was so thin growing up that many didn’t think she would survive childhood, Cleber Canabarro, her 84-year-old nephew, told The Associated Press.
LongeviQuest, an organization that tracks supercentenarians around the world, released a statement on Saturday declaring the nun in a wheelchair the world’s oldest person confirmed by early life records.
In a video the organization recorded last February, a smiling Canabarro can be seen cracking jokes, sharing miniature paintings she used of wildflowers and reciting a Hail Mary.
Carlos Macedo/LongeviQuest, via AP
The secret to longevity? Her Catholic faith, she says.
“I am young, beautiful and friendly – all very good, positive qualities that you also have,” the Teresian nun tells visitors to her retirement home in the southern Brazilian city of Porto Alegre.
Her nephew spends time with her every Saturday and sends her voice messages between visits to keep her spirits up after two hospitalizations that have left her weak, with difficulty speaking.
“The other sisters say she flinches when she hears my voice,” he says. – She gets excited.
Canabarro was born on June 8, 1908, into a large family in southern Brazil, according to LongeviQuest researchers. But her nephew said her birth was registered two weeks later and she was actually born on May 27. Her great-grandfather was a famous Brazilian general who took up arms during the turbulent period following Brazil’s independence from Portugal in the 19th century.
She began religious work as a teenager and spent two years in Montevideo, Uruguay, before moving to Rio de Janeiro and eventually settling in her native state of Rio Grande do Sul. A lifelong teacher, among her former students was General Joao Figueiredo, the last of the military dictators who ruled Brazil between 1964 and 1985. She was also the favorite creator of two orchestras in schools in sister cities on the border between Uruguay and Brazil.
Pope Francis honored her for her 110th birthday. She is the second oldest nun ever documented, after Lucille Randonwho was the oldest person in the world until her death in 2023 at the age of 118.
Local soccer club Inter — which was founded after Canabarro’s birth — celebrates the birthday of its oldest fan every year. Her room is decorated with gifts in the team’s red and white colors, her nephew says.
“White or black, rich or poor, whoever you are, Inter is a team of people,” she says in one video posted on social networks at the celebration of the 116th birthday with the president of the club.
Canabarro took over the title of oldest living person after the death of Japan’s Tomiko Itook in December, according to LongeviQuest. She is now ranked as the 20th oldest documented person to have ever lived, topped by France’s Jeanne Calment, who died in 1997 at the age of 122, according to LongeviQuest.
