Crossword Genius

Church must accept shortly one's to make saint (8)

Ross

I believe the answer is:

canonise

'saint' is the definition.
('saint'->'canonize' is in my internal thesaurus and 'ize'->'ise')

'church must accept shortly one's' is the wordplay.
'church' becomes 'ce' (abbreviation for Church of England).
'must accept' means one lot of letters goes inside another.
'shortly' becomes 'anon' ('anon' can be a synonym of 'shortly').
'one's' becomes 'is' (roman numeral).
'anon'+'is'='anonis'
'ce' going around 'anonis' is 'CANONISE'.

'to make' acts as a link.

(Other definitions for canonise that I've seen before include "Elevate to the sainthood" , "Declare officially to be a saint" , "Make a saint" , "Regard as a saint" , "Get into sacred writings" .)

I've seen this clue in The Telegraph.
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