Rocco whispered to the secular media in his hometown:
I’ve heard it from very good sources that at least one woman is probably going to end up being in a position that, until now, has been held by a Cardinal and will head a Vatican office, head a Vatican cabinet department which has never happened before, nowhere close in the life of the church.
That doesn’t mean that the appointees have to be cardinals. But that would be another separate and interesting move to make.
Catholic Sensibility 
What an intriguing development!
Even if one were to interpret the role of electing a pontiff as a strictly clerical responsibility, there is ample ancient precedent for non-clerics to be involved in the nomination of candidates for episcopal election as well as the acclamation of elected candidates. The college of cardinals could be expanded with different groups of candidates having these precedents in mind. There were also cardinals in the past who were only nominally clerics (as subdeacons, having taken tonsure, and committed to certain clerical responsibilities, but not the full spate for major orders).