Because you're preaching to commoners?
Through holding courts, you judge commoners, right?
Priest choose to separate themselves from the material world of prestige and such for the quite insane reason of preaching salvation and whatnot to the unwashed rabble. While the noble members of the religion *might* see merit in that, they would still think the priest was rather odd in most cases. Perhaps there are actions other then preaching that should provide a chance of prestige gain, but then like I said it appears the priest game is supposed to be separate from the prestige/honour system in most cases.
This is not a situation that applies to myself, but nowadays priest can become judges. And as a judge you might require to punish others. Which will drain your h/p. Something you can not gain back, or you must be holding courts day in day out, but as priest I can also understand that you have other responsibilities, such as preaching. And the reputation of a priest can still be expressed in h/p. And prestige remains important to every noble.
