“The demise of Catholic schools has pained me for years,” says Karen Carbone. But now her family is part of the effort to turn a parish school around and offer what expensive independent schools do at a much lower price.

From faith-based expectations for the second Obama term to major court cases on gay marriage to turmoil in the Middle East, we look ahead to the top religion and ethics stories we expect to be covering in the year 2013.

Watch a panel of reporters discuss the most significant religion and ethics news of 2012.

He buries the poor, feeds the hungry, rescues the injured, houses the homeless, and says the goal of his orphanage for Haitian children is “to raise the children together so they have memories of their own restored childhood and that later in life they become aunts and uncles to each other's ...

“We have a gigantic rift running through our culture, and it’s a rift that doesn’t run between denominations and institutions. It runs through them.”

“The rabbis going back to Maimonides and earlier felt that the lights of the Hanukkah lamp were sacred,” and if you couldn’t afford a gold or silver lamp “you could use an egg shell, or a nut shell, or a potato carved out.”

"It is prescribed that you should put the lamp in your doorway," says Susan Braunstein, curator of the Jewish Museum of New York, "so that the people walking on the street will see the lights and know that we are celebrating the miracle."

The disabled, says religion writer Mark Pinsky, “are not just people who need help, but they are people who can help."

"A lot of people in caregiving situations ask, 'Why is God doing this to me? Where is God in the midst of all this?' and they really struggle with spiritual matters," says Rev. Kate Bryant. Her church started a special ministry to support parental caregivers.

“The idea of the Talmud is that you are allowed to ask questions about everything,” says Rabbi Adin Steinsaltz. He calls the Talmud “the central pillar Jewish culture” and “a vast book encouraging you to ask questions.”

“There is a profound sense of the divine sparks of God being everywhere and that the role of the devoted person is to bring those divine sparks together again.”

Is this a film aimed at helping audiences find God? “It wouldn’t be that easy,” says director Ang Lee. “You have to go through suffering and pain. You have to be in awe. You have to go through tests to believe in God—or not believe in God, in some cases.”

“It’s such a great painting because you have God very energetic, and the wind pushing his hair back, and he’s very determined. He’s just created the universe, after all,” says art historian Bridget Goodbody.

Eating the week before Thanksgiving on a food stamp budget is an effort “to deepen our understanding about America,” says Rabbi Lenny Gordon.

"The tradition of the prophets said whatever you are doing is not really working as long as there are people who are hungry, who are without clothing, who are without shelter. That's how you judge a society."

“True dialogue is being confident in your own faith, but with a willingness to open it up so other people can test it, so we understand one another.”

There was more than one message on Election Day when it came to the role of evangelicals, Catholics, and Mormons in politics and the place of economic, social, and cultural issues as the fiscal cliff approaches.

The Chabad Center of the Five Towns in Cedarhurst, New York has been providing up to 2,000 meals every day.

Stephen Schneck, National Co-chair of Catholics for Obama, reviews the role of Catholics, evangelicals, and millennials in re-electing Barack Obama and anticipates how the Catholic bishops might interact with the second Obama administration.

After the election, Ralph Reed, founder and chairman of the Faith & Freedom Coalition, criticized the Romney campaign and the Republican Party for “underperforming.” "We did our job," said Reed. "But we can't do the Republican Party's job for them, and we can't do the candidate’s job for ...