Catholicism is larger than what is coming out of Rome these days. It would seem to me that it must be very depressing for progressive and moderate catholics to hear only the official Church line on so many issues confronting contemporary society. 
 I have started to feel an obligation to confront the image of the Church as presented and to remind people of the great wealth of diversity of opinion, culture, and tradition that resides in the Church. I thought for many years that I could just "sit this dance out" and wait for the Church to change, as I believe it inevitably must. My mind has changed in recent months though because of the great damage the current Roman administration is doing to the laity and institutions of the Church. 
 With that uneasiness in mind I felt that perhaps there were other priests who shared my feelings. One could not expect currently serving priests to be involved in any attempt to voice Catholicism as different than the official line. As such there is perhaps a social obligation on those priests who are beyond the reach of ecclesiastical repression to witness to the great diversity and richness of the Catholic traditions. It would be an effort to give hope and spiritual support to those Catholics who are tempted to despair. It would raise the profile of resigned priests, so that the Church establishment would have to respond rather than simply ignore us as they do now- their conspiracy of silence which we have bought into to preserve the status quo. 
 Yes, I want to be active again to serve a laity who I feel are currently being victimized by the clergy- but, I don't know that I could in good conscience be active in a Church that is as spiritually and intellectually corrupt as Catholicism is now. There are ivory towers and other "hideaways" from the full impact of the backwardness of the current Church where a priest can survive comfortably as a "professional priest"- but this finding your out-of-harm's-way niche seems to me to be spiritually dishonest to the Christian sense of solidarity in community.
  These thoughts have led me to think that a role for the resigned priest is that of the prophet rather than a supplementary cleric who helps prop up a corrupt and repressive institution by being available to fill in and otherwise allowing Rome to function without major reform. Prophets, as we know, are generally goads pointing to a return to traditional values and spiritual renewal- which in Catholicism case is diversity, creativity, innovation, etc., good stuff. Rather than become obsequious in efforts to legitimize our standing in a corupt administration, it seems to me that we already have a role, in that we are the "outsider" who is for the laity and thus prompted (inspired) to speak/witness. Rather than pine for a role in the future, I feel resigned priests should take the unique prophet role that we find ourselves in currently, and exercise it. This sort of approach is not going to make us popular with the hierarchy who many resigned priests look to for the opportunity to function again, but it seems to me to be a more honest, more necessary, and more immediate role for us- "attached outsiders" as most prophets are.