Football-loving nun says faith is secret to becoming world's oldest living woman

Sister Inah Canabarro has lived through two World Wars and 10 popes.(Photo: Gerontology Research Group)

A football-loving nun from the Brazilian state of Rio Grande do Sul has become the oldest person in the world after the death of Japanese woman Tomiko Itooka aged 116.

Sister Inah Canabarro, who was born on 8 June 1908 making her 116, is currently ranked the 20th oldest person to have ever lived, with France's Jeanne Calment, who died in 1997 at the age of 122, at number one.

LongeviQuest, an organisation tracking supercentenarians around the globe, said her milestone had been validated by early life records. Early last year, they shared a video showing Sister Inah cracking jokes, reciting the Hail Mary prayer, and sharing the miniature paintings of wildflowers that were once her hobby.

"I'm young, pretty and friendly - all very good, positive qualities that you have too," she told visitors to her retirement home in the southern Brazilian city of Porto Alegre.

The devout nun, who had once been so thin and weak that her parents had not expected her to survive, credits her long life to her faith in God.

"My secret, my great secret, is to pray," Sister Inah Canabarro Lucas said early last year in an interview with ACI Digital, CNA's Portuguese-language news partner. "I pray the rosary every day for all the people around the world."

Born Inah Canabarro Lucas in the São Francisco de Assis district of inner Rio Grande do Sul state, Sister Inah was the sixth of seven children.

"Her godfather at that time told her father: 'Friend, don't get me wrong, but this girl must be sick and get ready because unfortunately I don't think she will last long'," Kléber Canabarro Lucas, 83, the nun's nephew, said.

"They're all gone, and she is already 116 years old!"

Cleber said he believed that it was her spirituality that had sustained her.

"Sister Inah is our pinnacle in terms of religiosity, faith, goodwill, a kind and good-humoured person; she has been like that all her life."

Her vocation dates back to her childhood when she heard about the chance to study at a convent in her town. Asking her mother, "What are nuns?", she was told that they were women who dedicated themselves to praying to God. Her reply? "I'm going to be a nun."

Sister Inah studied at the convent until she was 19, when she went for her novitiate with the Teresian Sisters in Montevideo, Uruguay. Dedicating her life to teaching, Sister Inah taught Portuguese, mathematics, science, history, art, and religion in Teresian schools, also helping establish marching bands at Santa Teresa school in Sant'Ana do Livramento and the Pomoli Institute in Rivera, Uruguay.

Alongside her faith, there has been one other constant that has endured, her passion for football. While her local club Inter celebrates her birthday every year with a cake, it is Sport Clube Internacional that has been in her life the longest, founded in 1909 when she was one year old.

Asked why she supported them, she told ACI Digital, "Because it's the team of the people, good people, poor, very upright, very good."

But, they are rare constants in a life that has seen endless change, taking in two World Wars and 10 popes. Born when St Pius X was still pontiff and living to be honoured by Pope Francis on her 110th birthday, Sister Inah is the second oldest nun ever documented.

She is also one of few nuns in her congregation who still wears her habit despite it becoming optional at the Second Vatican Council of 1963–1965. Her faith remains steadfast and many of the sisters were her students or have a story about how Sister Inah helped them discover their vocation.

"I feel very happy, very grateful to God because it was [Sister Inah] who guided me along this path and now I can be useful to her, help her in the moments when she needs me," said Sister Velmira, her carer.

For Sister Teresinha de Aragón, 83, who has known her since childhood, Sister Inah's life is easily summed up.

"She is super happy, a person who has life, has love, truly loves."