A senior cleric holds me to be humble (6)
I believe the answer is:
demean
'humble' is the definition.
(demeaning is a kind of humbling)
'a senior cleric holds me to be' is the wordplay.
'a senior cleric' becomes 'dean'.
'holds' means one lot of letters goes inside another.
'to be' indicates anagramming the letters.
'me' with letters rearranged gives 'em'.
'dean' going around 'em' is 'DEMEAN'.
(Other definitions for demean that I've seen before include "Lower, degrade" , "Lower in dignity or reputation" , "Belittle; degrade" , "Lower in reputation, humiliate" , "Humble" .)