A cute little story which seemed to shift in tone. In the beginning it seemed like an indictment of swearing, but then when the priest turned into a sea lion much less so.
I could see a whole branch of research opening up about swearing. The priests' blessings don't actually seem to cost anything, so you could hire a whole team of researchers and keep a few priests on staff. Like the priest pointed out you could experience foreign anatomies firsthand, which would help all kinds of scientific research. You could study to find out if there's a predictable pattern between the curse word used and the final form of the change. I could totally dig becoming a sea lion, especially if I knew someone could bless me out of it, but I'd rather avoid the sea cucumber word. Maybe it's not the word itself that defines the form but the force with which you say it? Or maybe there are secondary factors involved, or it could just be random. These are the things I'd want to find out!