Catholic hosting place to study type of ancient symbols (5)
I believe the answer is:
runic
'ancient symbols' is the definition.
(I've seen this before)
'catholic hosting place to study' is the wordplay.
'catholic' becomes 'RC' (abbreviation for Roman Catholic).
'hosting' means one lot of letters goes inside another (inserted letters are welcomed in or hosted).
'place to study' becomes 'uni' (university).
'rc' enclosing 'uni' is 'RUNIC'.
'type of' is the link.
I am not very happy about this link. Some or all of it may be part of another bit of the clue.
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for runic that I've seen before include "In Celtic style" , "Like some old characters" , "Like old Scandinavian writing" , "of historic letters" , "Like mysterious characters" .)