1.
Your question is too profound for me, so I'll skate around it. I think that we need a full-fledged contemporary Francis. Our version is a partial, a transition; the best we could hope for at the moment. I wonder, if the original Francis had opted for "ordination" whether he would have included Clare with him?
The church has an absolute need for a transitional mode of collective discernment, unfettered by anything except a) Faith that Jesus represents an ontological change, an "evolutionary" elevation of creation into a relationship with God - whether new or restored is irrelevant. b)That humanity is in some kind of relationship that is "co-custodial" of creation. c) That Jesus is a thinker, teacher in the line of civilizational greats who takes us beyond  our "ought", beyond knowledge to wisdom; takes us beyond the "to be" and do "the good" to a vocational calling to do and be more (e.g.,beatitudes and Cor.I,13); from the mutuality of interdependence to the "unitification" of love.