Religion's leader always facing extreme cleric (8)
I believe the answer is:
reverend
'cleric' is the definition.
(I've seen this before)
'religion's leader always facing extreme' is the wordplay.
'leader' suggests taking the first letters.
'always' becomes 'ever' ('ever' can be a synonym of 'always').
'facing' means one lot of letters go next to another.
'extreme' becomes 'end' (I've seen this before).
The initial letter of 'religions' is 'r'.
'r'+'ever'+'end'='REVEREND'
(Other definitions for reverend that I've seen before include "Title of a Protestant clergyman" , "Title of respect for a clergyman" , "like Father Brown" , "Mother may go after this" , "Minister" .)