I said both are highly unlikely. I don’t think we’ll see Holy Orders offered to women (it seems impossible). Likewise, I don’t see the point of non-ordained deaconesses. Women already do everything any lay person can do, so giving some women a title even though they do the same things as other lay men and women seems superfluous. The minor orders became defunct for the same reasons–regular lay people or higher clergy just did those things.
As for Cardinals, again, women already advise the Pope and serve in the Church’s bureaucracy–they don’t have to be Cardinals to do that. I’m also not so sure it is possible to make them Cardinals, at least how the office has been traditionally defined. Cardinals are by their nature clergy (in the narrow sense of the word). Even “lay cardinals” in the past were not actually laymen, strictly speaking. They always received the tonsure and were in the minor orders (the minor orders, while sacramental, had a special connection to the major orders and were therefore reserve to men–even the “instituted ministries” which have less of a connection, are still reserved to men).
The cardinalate is not just the electoral college of the papacy or advisors to the Pope or even just an honorary title. The title of Cardinal grew out of their clerical status. It was originally a title given to all clergy permanently attached to a church/diocese, or “incardinated” as we say today. Then it began to be reserved to those in prominent Sees, then to the chief clergy there, and finally to those of the Roman See only. Just as when various bishops had the title of Pope, the Bishop of Rome was still the head, the status of the Roman clergy was always special. As the clergy of the chief particular Church, they were given special honor–which is why even in the very nascent Church during an interregnum, difficult questions were submitted still to the Roman priests (since the Roman Church was the head of all the other Churches).
To this day Cardinals are clergy of Rome. When clergy outside Rome are made Cardinals, those clergy are given parishes in Rome. While the College of Cardinals as an electorate is only 1000 years old, their office as Roman clergy goes back to the beginning.
Seeing the cardinalate as merely bureaucracy or even the electors of the Pope, misses the point. Lay people in the Roman bureaucracy (always subject to the bishop, in this case, the Pope), is fine. Lay people electors of the Pope is also theologically fine–the election of a Pope can happen however the previous supreme authority legislates (it is very common for a sitting Pope to slightly modify the election law). In the past, lay emperors were given a vote or veto power or even the only say; theoretically other lay people could be given a vote, or the sitting Pope could choose his successor, etc.
But bestowing the cardinalate on such lay bureaucrats or electors would deviate from what a cardinal truly is, which is clergy. Lay emperors and whatnot who participated in papal elections, were not made Cardinals, for example. However, such times are generally seen as less than ideal, so I don’t think we’ll go back to lay electors again any time soon.
) bishops and archbishops with titular sees (i.e., suppressed diocese with no churches, clergy, or faithful) who are appointed to high roles in the Vatican. Some of those are clerical in nature (e.g., the Society for the Propagation of the Faith), while others could conceivably be filled by laity (Secretary of State, heads of banks, etc.). There would be no need to apply the “cardinal” label to such laity, and it would only cause confusion.