DESSERVANTS. — A term exclusively proper to French ecclesiastical law, having no counterpart in official canonical terminology.
In the law prior to Napoleon, its use was rather rare and referred sometimes to the vicar curate in the sense of can. 471, sometimes to the vicar curate of a portion of a parish dependent on the parish priest, and more specifically, to the vicar oeconomus mentioned in cann. 472–73.
It became common usage with the Neapolitan Concordat to denote priests entrusted with the cure of souls in parish branches created by the Concordat itself.
The law of 8 April 1582, better known under the name of Articles organiques, for contingent purposes of political and administrative control, had restricted the concept and prerogatives of parish priest solely to those holding the cure of souls in district capitals. The other cure districts contained within the same district, while remaining true parishes in canonical sense, were styled succursales, in the manner of vicars curate, and their holders, made removable at the bishop’s pleasure and reduced to the rank of vicars curate dependent on the parish priest of the capital, were termed desservants or succursalistes.
At present, desservants are practically equated with parish priests (art. 30 of the decree Maxima cura of 20 August 1910 of the Sacred Consistorial Congregation). The only distinguishing feature, apart from the name, is their removability at the discretion of their Ordinary.