Okay, it had to be done:
(Cuz everything ya eats gots Flava!)
Now THAT's out of the way, yeah... interesting story. A few folks touched on the question of the religion, but I
As for what Djdj said about the character not representing asexual folk, I didn't think that was quite what the author intended to represent. A lot of folks feel a profound sense of "rapture" at orgasm (just in case anyone didn't know that), and while most religions try to remove the distractions through
ascetism, others (including this order) try to remove the distraction by over-satisfying, or desensitizing through over-indulgence.
The Assaisonnement (spelling courtesy of the snippet in the initial post) were supposed to have been "turned off" in order to keep them from getting in between the Devourists (my own spelling guess) and God. The priests are the "instruments" for helping the Devourists get past their physical passions so they could see God, and the priests aren't supposed to feel love or desire. I imagine this would let people tell themselves, "It's not a sin if it's their job" or something along those lines.
As was pointed out by others, this servitude is slavery and rape, and clearly not Antonio's choice, but the Order seems to have rationalized that because they took him in and "gave him training and therapy" that this is some great favor, and something that he would have chosen to do.
But basically, I took the story as a commentary on the different ways people seek to find their spirituality externally, when it's usually simply inside themselves in the first place. Contessa was seeking it through intense practice of her faith; Antonio wanted to get out from under his contract, and find his own way. And if read in that light, it highlights the dangers of following any particular organized faith to a logical extreme, because in the end, they can* end up leading people even further astray than they thought they were to begin with.
*Note: I said "can" not "do" and not "inevitably will"