Is the federal government more than “one word for things we do together”? Should government say "you're on your own"? A politician and a priest speak about Catholic social teaching, the budget, and government's role in our lives.

“It doesn’t take a lot of misfortune to be on the street these days. I think everybody in America knows that right now,” says Ann Miller of Helena, Montana, where she and her husband, Wayne, opened God’s Love, an emergency homeless shelter and soup kitchen.

“We don’t want a religious state,” says Muslim Brotherhood member of parliament Ossama Yassin. “We want a modern, civil, democratic state belonging to the people.”

“When we say grace we are grateful for the food on our plates. But where did that food travel? Who picked it? How did it get to us? As people of faith we are called to think about that.”

We discuss the major religion and ethics stories anticipated in 2012, including religion in the upcoming elections, faith-based activity in the budget debates and immigration policy, key religion cases before the Supreme Court and mainline denominations and issues of homosexuality.

We discuss the major religion and ethics stories of the past year in the U.S. and abroad with Washington Post columnist E.J. Dionne, Religion News Service editor Kevin Eckstrom and Religion & Ethics NewsWeekly managing editor Kim Lawton.

"When we’ve had that political will to reduce poverty, we’ve been able to do it in our country, and that’s what we need to mobilize now," says Reverend David Beckmann, president of Bread for the World.

"Something like happiness, it sound frivolous, but it’s not frivolous. The purpose of society is to create a better quality of life for all the people. It’s not to create the highest amount of aggregate wealth," says international business consultant and author David Rothkopf.

"We are here to provide a religious presence. We are here to listen to people, to hear what’s on their hearts. And we’re here to pray with people...because people are in crisis and that’s why we are all here." says protest chaplain Erica Richmond.

Watch excerpts of interviews with people of faith who are supporting the Occupy Wall Street protests.