They can only reveal metadata since they keep everything encrypted, but that was enough to track down this person's Proton recovery email address? That's disconcerting.
Trying to use a commercial privacy service to threaten election officials is definitely some dumb shit though, but I bet they could have avoided that outcome with some better opsec
To answer your first question, AWOL is also used colloquially to describe people wildly or destructively ignoring the responsibilities of their job. So it'd be an apt descriptor if it was talking about a REAL priest but in this case it's just flowery wording (presumably for alliteration)