Unmarried priest given stick entering church (8)

I believe the answer is:

celibate

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'unmarried' is the definition.
(thesaurus)

'priest given stick entering church' is the wordplay.
'priest' becomes 'eli' (I've seen this before).
'given stick' becomes 'bat' (bat is a kind of stick. I am not sure about the 'given' bit.**).
'entering' means one lot of letters goes inside another.
'church' becomes 'ce' (abbreviation for Church of England).
'eli'+'bat'='elibat'
'elibat' inserted inside 'ce' is 'CELIBATE'.

Can you help me to learn more?

(Other definitions for celibate that I've seen before include "Just like Catholic priest" , "Citeable as unmarried for religious reasons" , "Abstaining from sexual relations" , "Abstaining from sex" , "He shuns sex" .)

I've seen this clue in The Times.

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