The Japanese Tomiko Itooka died this Saturday, January 4 at the age of 116. The new dean of humanity is a Brazilian nun of the same age.
The new dean of humanity is a 116-year-old Brazilian, Inah Canabarro Lucas, announces the Gerontology Research Group (GRG), specializing in supercentenarians, this Saturday, January 4, after the death of the previous oldest woman in the world. world, the Japanese Tomiko Itooka, 116 years old. Inah Canabarro Lucas is 16 days younger than the previous oldest member.
“His age was meticulously documented and verified (…) and validated by the Gerontology Research Group (GRG) on June 8, 2022,” assures the GRG.
The group explains that it will now “cooperate with Guinness World Records (GWR) for the recognition of Inah Canabarro Lucas as the new oldest living person in the world.”
Became a nun in Uruguay
She was born in São Francisco de Assis, in the south of Brazil, to Joao Antonio Lucas and Mariana Canabarro Lucas. While she claimed to have been born on May 27, 1908, research established that she was actually born 11 days later, on June 8.
She is the great-granddaughter of General David Canabarro (1796-1867), a politician and soldier who participated in the Farrapos War, a Republican rebellion. She lost her father who died in combat in 1923.
After studying at a boarding school in Santa Teresa de Jesus in Santana do Livramento in southern Brazil, she left her country around 1928 for Uruguay. There, she became a nun and took her vows. She returned to Brazil two years later and taught Portuguese and mathematics in a school in Rio de Janeiro. She then returned to the boarding school where she had been a student as a child and became a teacher there in the 1940s.
According to her nephew, she was “strict, attached to discipline”, but also “affectionate and seduced everyone” as a teacher. Very pious, she says about her longevity: “My secret is to pray”.
“Resistant, not demanding”
According to another nun, Sister Lúcia Ignez Bassotto, Inah Canabarro Lucas is “always turned towards others and not focused on herself”. She was described in 2024 as “very resilient, not demanding, who appreciates everything”, but also as a person “who thinks everything is fine, who has enormous admiration for the congregation”.
“She prays for everyone, she cares about everyone,” she said of the supercentenarian Brazilian.
Inah Canabarro Lucas likes to be active, spending time in the garden of her convent, but also spending time with her sisters. Although her health has declined over the past year, limiting her activities, she has long enjoyed painting napkins and playing cards.
Supporter of a club based in Porto Alegre
Nothing predicted her such longevity. According to the GRG, “as a child, she was so thin that many thought she would not survive” to adulthood, let alone surpass a century of lifespan.
In 2018, she received an apostolic blessing from Pope Francis for her 110th birthday, according to LongeviQuest, which bills itself as the leading database on the lives and ages of the world's oldest people.
A music fan, she helped found the Pomoli Institute in Rivera brass band in Uruguay, with 115 instruments. She is also a fervent supporter of Sport Club Internacional, a Brazilian football club based in Porto Alegre and created a year after her birth in 1909, according to the Catholic News Agency.
In 2021, at the age of 112, she became the oldest person in the world to receive a Covid-19 vaccine. She is now the last living person born in 1908.
