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Inner Sea Magic has a section about magic schools and ranks within them that can be adapted.
Essentially you do missions for the organization (often not adventuring missions, but instead menial work at low levels and diplomatic work at higher levels) and you get fame points with your organization.
It is not perfect and it will require work, but it is a decent starting point. The main problem is that it will require one player to spend time with the GM, while other players would be mostly sidelined (unless the whole group is made around the concept).
Great if you can do one-on-one game sessions and the player and the GM have the time, less great if it "robs" playing time to the whole group.
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Being a member of any hierarchy (outside of an adventuring guild or company) tends to clash with a typical 'adventuring' lifestyle, as it strongly implies responsibilities that the PC needs to fulfill.
Actual advancement in such an organization makes things worse, as you have greater responsibilities (meetings to attend, underlings to manage, projects to plan, etc.) that you probably can't just drop to rush off and deal with a new adventure.
You probably could make this work, but pretty much the entire campaign would have to be focused on adventures the cleric's hierarchy assigns, which brings a bunch of issues Diego mentioned...
A lot of it depends on the organization and its structure.
Using the real world for inspiration and as an example, it was common for second sons of nobility to be entered into the church, and the lines between a prince of the church and a secular warrior-aristocrat were often blurred. By the 12th century, we have several examples of bishops who retained their bishoprics even while away at war (throughout Europe, but also in the Levantine) for years at a time. It’s thus not that strange to imagine a player character gaining high rank while also maintaining a mobile profile—or maintaining an itinerant court around their person if they also have the Leadership feat.
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Phoebus Alexandros makes a good point.
During the XVII and XVIII centuries a lot of scientists and travelers were abbots, not as the head of a monastery, but as secular abbots (Wikipedia).
The title gave some privileges when traveling and before the law with little or no duties. Not exactly what you want, but it will leave a lot of free time and the ability to do what you want while being in the church hierarchy.
Plenty of famous personages of the late middle ages (like Petrarch) were canons officially responsible for one or more priorities but never really caring for them, simply getting the income and paying some ordinated priest to manage it for them.
For a long time, the Papal States were a state first and a church second. People still had to obey the hierarchy, but what mattered were the political aspects of that, not the religious ones.
When a player wants to be part of the hierarchy of a church, I usually have them take the feat Leadership and have their followers be worshipers of the deity they serve. Depending on the nature and alignment of the deity you might not need much more, especially for a chaotic deity. For a lawful or lawful leaning deity, you can assign them a superior they report to in order to fit them into a more formal role. As their leadership score increases, they increase their rank as appropriate. This is a fairly basic way to handle it, but it works for when a player wants to have some role in the church without making the church the focus of the campaign.
The downtime, building, and organization rules in Ultimate Campaign could also be useful in quantifying how much reach and influence a church leader has, if you want that level of detail. The character's actual rank will still need to be judged by the GM.
There is at least one AP where PCs have the option during the downtime between books to work with the local temple and gain a place in its hierarchy. My oracle PC did that, as well as taking Leadership a book or two later. My group has only completed 4 of the 6 books, so I don't know yet how much that status will play a part in the rest of the AP (if any), but my PC would certainly be interested in taking a bigger role in the priesthood after the current in-game crisis is resolved.
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Phoebus Alexandros makes a good point.
During the XVII and XVIII centuries a lot of scientists and travelers were abbots, not as the head of a monastery, but as secular abbots (Wikipedia).
The title gave some privileges when traveling and before the law with little or no duties. Not exactly what you want, but it will leave a lot of free time and the ability to do what you want while being in the church hierarchy.Plenty of famous personages of the late middle ages (like Petrarch) were canons officially responsible for one or more priorities but never really caring for them, simply getting the income and paying some ordinated priest to manage it for them.
For a long time, the Papal States were a state first and a church second. People still had to obey the hierarchy, but what mattered were the political aspects of that, not the religious ones.
One thing to keep in mind about the 'real world' is that the Roman Catholic church was basically the only repository of knowledge and research in 'the west' (for lack of a better term) in the medieval period and continued to be a major player in these areas until relatively recently, which is why so many scholars were actually part of the church (it was literally 'the only game in town' beyond a few nobles who might be willing to employ you).
That being said, I think it is a bit of a stretch to call someone with 'little or no duties' a true member of a hierarchy as that implies no real authority either: You may very well have the protection of the organization, but if you basically answer to no one and no one answers to you, then you don't really have a 'place' in the organization's actual hierarchy.