A football-loving Brazilian nun is believed to have become the world’s oldest living person at almost 117 years old following the recent death of a Japanese woman.
Sister Inah Canabarro was so thin as a child that many did not 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, issued a statement Saturday declaring the wheelchair-bound nun the world’s oldest person validated by early life records.
In a video recorded by the organization last February, the smiling Canabarro can be seen making jokes, sharing miniature paintings she used to make with wildflowers and reciting the Hail Mary prayer.
The secret to longevity? His Catholic faith, he says.
“I am young, pretty and friendly, all very good positive qualities that you also have,” the Teresian nun tells visitors to her nursing home in the city of Porto Alegre, in southern Brazil.
Her nephew spends time with her every Saturday and sends her voice messages between visits to keep her spirits up after two hospitalizations that left her weak and struggling to speak.
“The other sisters say she jumps when she hears my voice,” she says. “She gets excited.”
Canabarro was born on June 8, 1908, into a large family in southern Brazil, according to LongeviQuest researchers. But his nephew said his birth was registered two weeks late and that he was actually born on May 27. His 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 while still a teenager and spent two years in Montevideo, Uruguay, before moving to Rio de Janeiro and finally settling in her home state of Rio Grande do Sul.
A lifelong teacher, her former students included General Joao Figueiredo, the last of the military dictators who ruled Brazil between 1964 and 1985. She was also the beloved creator of two music bands in schools in sister cities on either side of the border between Uruguay and Brazil. .
On the occasion of her 110th birthday, she was honored by Pope Francis. She is the second oldest nun ever documented, after Lucile Randon, who was the oldest person in the world until her death in 2023, at the age of 118.
The local football club Inter, founded after Canabarro’s birth, celebrates the birthday of its oldest fan every year. His room is decorated with gifts in the team’s red and white colors, his nephew says.
“Black or white, rich or poor, whoever you are, Inter is the people’s team,” he says in a video posted on social media celebrating his 116th birthday with the club president.
Canabarro took the title of oldest living person after the death of Japanese woman Tomiko Itooka in December, according to LongeviQuest.
She now ranks as the 20th oldest documented person to have ever lived, a list topped by Frenchwoman Jeanne Calment, who died in 1997 at the age of 122, according to LongeviQuest.
