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Catholic inclination to confess, as purification (9)

Ross

I believe the answer is:

cleansing

'purification' is the definition.
(thesaurus)

'catholic inclination to confess' is the wordplay.
'catholic' becomes 'c' (abbreviation as in RC for Roman Catholic).
'inclination' becomes 'lean' ('lean' can be a synonym of 'inclination').
'to confess' becomes 'sing' (I've seen this before).
'c'+'lean'+'sing'='CLEANSING'

'as' acts as a link.

(Other definitions for cleansing that I've seen before include "Nice slang for making thoroughly free from dirt (9)" , "Purging" .)

I've seen this clue in The Independent.
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