Dotty character fronting Mass in the morning is religious official (4)
I believe the answer is:
imam
'religious official' is the definition.
The answer and definition can be both people as well as being singular nouns.
Perhaps you can see an association between them that I can't see?
'dotty character fronting mass in the morning' is the wordplay.
'dotty character' becomes 'i' (a lowercase i has a dot on it).
'fronting' suggests taking the first letters (I've seen 'front of' mean this).
'in the morning' becomes 'am' (AM on a clock).
The first letter of 'mass' is 'm'.
'i'+'m'+'am'='IMAM'
'is' is the link.
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for imam that I've seen before include "Caliph" , "Ma, I'm off to find religious Muslim" , "Mosque's prayer leader" , "Prayer-leader in a mosque" , "Muslim community leader" .)