De Brabandere was born in
Ooigem,
West Flanders, on 25 September 1828. He enrolled at the
Major Seminary, Bruges, on 1 October 1848 and was ordained to the priesthood on 21 May 1853. He went on to study at the
Catholic University of Leuven, graduating
licentiate of
canon law in 1857, after which he spent a year at the
Belgian Pontifical College in Rome. After returning to Belgium he briefly served in parish ministry in
Ypres before being appointed professor of canon law at the seminary in Bruges in 1861. He wrote a manual of canon law that was a standard text for decades. He became the director of the seminary in 1869, and
vicar general to
Bishop Faict in 1880. He became a canon of
Bruges Cathedral in 1885, and
vicar capitular after Bishop Faict's death in January 1894. He was appointed Faict's successor as bishop of Bruges on 18 May 1894 and was consecrated as bishop on 11 June 1894. He died in Bruges on 31 March 1895, having been bishop for less than a year. ==Publications==