Church blocking payment disheartened laity not long ago (8)
I believe the answer is:
recently
'not long ago' is the definition.
(thesaurus)
'church blocking payment disheartened laity' is the wordplay.
'church' becomes 'ce' (abbreviation for Church of England).
'blocking' means one lot of letters goes inside another.
'payment' becomes 'rent' (rent is a kind of payment).
'disheartened' means to remove the middle letters.
'laity' with its middle removed is 'ly'.
'ce' placed inside 'rent' is 'recent'.
'recent'+'ly'='RECENTLY'
(Other definitions for recently that I've seen before include "Of late" , "Adverb meaning not long ago" , "Lately" , "Happening not long ago" , "In the near past" .)