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Weird church official lacking energy later, and desire (8)

Ross

I believe the answer is:

eldritch

I'm a little stuck... Click here to teach me more about this clue!

'weird' is the definition.
(I know that weird can be written as eldritch)

'church official lacking energy later and desire' is the wordplay.
I cannot quite see how this works, but
'church' could be 'ch' (common abbreviation) and 'ch' is present in the answer.
'energy' could be 'e' (physics symbol as in E=mc2) and 'e' is located in the answer.
This may be the basis of the clue (or it may be nonsense).

Can you help me to learn more?

(Other definitions for eldritch that I've seen before include "Weird Scots" , "Weird, sinister, ghostly" , "Spooky" , "Weird Scottish" .)

I've seen this clue in The Times.
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