I’d be interested in hearing the opinion of those who follow the internal affairs of the Catholic Church closely as to how likely they think it is that the Church will in the foreseeable future (or ever) permit the ordination of women. More and more Protestant denominations have been doing so, but my guess for the Catholic Church would be “not very likely”.
It will never happen. John Paul II, Benedict XVI, and now Francis have all infallibly taught the ordination of women is an impossibility.
But there is some dispute among otherwise orthodox theologians about the infallibility of
Ordinatio sacerdotalis, in a way that there is not about, say, the infallibility of the teachings against abortion and euthanasia in
Evangelium vitae.
It's still very unlikely, though, because whether it's technically infallible or not, it's definitely placed at a pretty high level of theological certitude (for reasons I, personally, still don't really understand). What's likelier is that new vocational options for women will end up being developed, since--other than marriage and holy orders, which we have had and will have come hell or high water--what vocations are available to Catholics aren't static, and vary from culture to culture. (Who, for example, has met a beguine recently?)
