Synodality offers the hope of an inclusive Church in which co-responsibility for mission is grounded in the equal baptismal dignity of all the People of God. Yet many Catholic women experience a contradiction between Catholic Social Teaching's (CST) call for respect for the equal human dignity of all persons in society, and their experience in the Church (International Survey of Catholic Women, McEwan, McPhillips, Pepper, 2023; Woman and Man: One in Christ Jesus, McDonald, Carpenter, Cornish et al, 1999). The Synod on Synodality's Final Document saw this as an impediment to the effectiveness of the Church's mission (n 60). This paper adopts a participant observer approach while bringing Catholic social thought expertise to analysis of the Synod's engagement with CST and the theme of women in the Church. The author-researcher outlines her involvement in the synod process through its local (Australia), continental (Oceania) and universal Church stages, including serving as an expert facilitator at the two Synod Assemblies in Rome. She analyses the content of the synod documents in relation to CST itself, their use of CST concepts, and especially their treatment of the theme of women in the Church. Imagining a shift in positionality from expert facilitator to expert theologian, and from expert to Synod Member, she speculates on what she could have contributed to the synod. Turning to the reception of synodality within Global Catholicism, the paper proposes that the quality of the Church's relationships with marginalised groups such as women is crucial to the credibility of synodality as well as of CST, and of the Church itself. Synodal listening must result in renewed praxis. The transformation of the Catholic Church's own practice in relation to women - the largest marginalised group within the Church - offers a vital space for more authentic witness and teaching through example.