A right racket in California for a papal adviser (8)
I believe the answer is:
cardinal
'a papal adviser' is the definition.
(I've seen this before)
'a right racket in california' is the wordplay.
'right' becomes 'r' (common abbreviation).
'racket' becomes 'din' (I've seen this before).
'in' is an insertion indicator.
'california' becomes 'cal' (short for California).
'a'+'r'+'din'='ardin'
'ardin' inserted within 'cal' is 'CARDINAL'.
'for' is the link.
(Other definitions for cardinal that I've seen before include "Red American songbird" , "cleric" , "Most important number" , "Primary - colour" , "fundamental importance" .)