Sad moralist upset about church putting priests on a pedestal? (13)
I believe the answer is:
sacerdotalism
'priests on a pedestal?' is the definition.
Although both the answer and definition are singular nouns, I cannot understand how they can define each other.
'sad moralist upset about church' is the wordplay.
'upset' is an anagram indicator.
'about' means one lot of letters goes inside another.
'church' becomes 'ce' (abbreviation for Church of England).
'sad'+'moralist'='sadmoralist'
'sadmoralist' is an anagram of 'sardotalism'.
'sardotalism' placed around 'ce' is 'SACERDOTALISM'.
'putting' is the link.
Can you help me to learn more?
(Another definition for sacerdotalism that I've seen is " A mild Socrates (anag.); priestcraft".)