[1] André De Witte was born into a farming family in the village of Scheldewindeke, in the intensively developed countryside to the south of Ghent.

[2] He undertook his studies for the priesthood in response to the call of Pope Pius XII in the encyclical Fidei donum,[3] attending the College for Latin America in Leuven (Louvain) where he was ordained on 6 July 1968.

[2] For the next 18 years he worked in the rural parish of Inhambupe in the newly formed Roman Catholic Diocese of Alagoinhas.

[5] On 8 June 1994, André de Witte was nominated as the fourth bishop of the diocese of Ruy Barbosa: on 28 August he was consecrated by the Archbishop of São Salvador da Bahia, Cardinal Lucas Moreira Neves, OP.

[9] In 2015 Dom André was elected vice-chair of the Country Commission("Comissão Pastoral da Terra" / CPT) of the Brazilian bishops.