Sad, finding the heartless in religious surroundings (7)
I believe the answer is:
piteous
'sad' is the definition.
(thesaurus)
'the heartless in religious surroundings' is the wordplay.
'heartless' means to remove the middle letters.
'in religious' becomes 'pious' (associated in meaning. I am not sure about the 'in' bit.).
'surroundings' is an insertion indicator.
'the' with its middle taken out is 'te'.
'te' placed within 'pious' is 'PITEOUS'.
'finding' acts as a link.
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for piteous that I've seen before include "Heart-rending" , "Woeful" , "Deserving compassion" , "Deserving sympathy" , "Arousing sorrow and compassion" .)