I was looking at this for a new PC I was putting together.

Do you keep your starting Talents as Cleric and only replace the skills or do you loose the talents?

If you are referring to the Alternate Career Rank "Confessor" in Blood of Martyrs, then this replaces your advance-scheme for Rank 1, but does nothing to your starting skills & Talents.

Ie, you make your Cleric as normal, except for Stage 4: Spend starting XP. This XP is then spent on the alternate ranks scheme.

If you are referring to the Alternate Career Rank "Confessor" in Blood of Martyrs, then this replaces your advance-scheme for Rank 1, but does nothing to your starting skills & Talents.

Ie, you make your Cleric as normal, except for Stage 4: Spend starting XP. This XP is then spent on the alternate ranks scheme.

It does change the starting skills, and but said nothing about Talents.

You are quite right, that Career has special rules. It says nothing about Talents, so you keep them as per the Cleric class.

That was what I thought, but I wanted to get a 2nd opinion