Preserves satire ignored by sectarians (4)
I believe the answer is:
cans
'preserves' is the definition.
(canning is a kind of preserving)
'satire ignored by sectarians' is the wordplay.
'ignored by' suggests deleting specific letters.
'sectarians' with 'satire' taken out is 'CANS'.
(Other definitions for cans that I've seen before include "Headphones" , "Tins" , "Metal containers" .)