Father has directions for religious leaders (5)
I believe the answer is:
popes
'religious leaders' is the definition.
(the pope leads the Catholic Church)
'father has directions' is the wordplay.
'father' becomes 'pop ' (pop is a kind of father).
'has' is a charade indicator (letters next to each other).
'directions' becomes 'Es' (east and south - two directions).
'pop'+'es'='POPES'
'for' acts as a link.
(Other definitions for popes that I've seen before include "Pontiffs" , "Heads of the Roman Catholic church" .)