Scales

What does them being a militant order have to do with - Oh, that might be the problem.

As a general rule, Catholic religious orders which accept men have both ordained priests and non-ordained brothers. Because of this, I was unsure of whether or not Axis and his fellow brothers were clerics or not.

But since if 'holy orders' means anything at all here it means 'ordination' I know that the Axe-Wielders do not have priests among their ranks. (I suppose I said it a bit backwards, in that what I meant was more that priests are not Axe-Wielders.)

The most relevant part from a commentary point of view is that when Axis goes around breaking his vows - every Catholic religious order has vows of chastity and obedience - and otherwise behaving immorally he's 'only' doing so as a religious brother and not as a priest with a duty of pastoral care.