There is a rather widespread myth that Catholics are not consistent in their thinking about life issues. It is often said that those who are pro-life in their opposition to abortion are quite willing to endorse the death penalty, and that those who are pro-life in opposing the death penalty tend to be pro-choice when it comes to abortion.

My latest national survey challenges this myth. With support from the Institute for Church Life at the University of Notre Dame, I asked a cross-section of American Catholics to respond to the following statement: "Terminating a pregnancy by having an abortion is always wrong," Fifty-six percent of Catholics agreed, 39 percent disagreed, and 5 percent did not answer.

I asked the same 1,100 people to respond to another statement: "The Church is right in opposing the death penalty." Fifty-eight percent agreed, 34 percent disagreed, and 8 percent did not answer. The distributions on the two items were remarkably similar.

But, was there a correlation between the two? The answer is "yes." A correlation of .33 indicates that Catholics who agreed with one of these statements also tended to agree with the other. More often than not, the response to one statement predicted the response to the other. The correlation was not perfect, but the answers to the two items clearly overlapped.

What factors contribute most to Catholics' views on these two issues? How much effect do demographics factors such as generation and gender have, compared to religious factors (such as whether one is a registered parishioner or a weekly churchgoer)?

Demographic factors do not have much impact. I examined the differences between four generations: pre-Vatican II Catholics (born in or before 1940), Vatican II Catholics (born 1941-1960), post-Vatican II Catholics (born 1961-1982), and millennial Catholics (born 1983 to the present).

---The generational differences are quite small. Sixty-six percent of pre-Vatican II Catholics oppose abortion, but there are very few differences between Vatican II Catholics (54 percent), post-Vatican II Catholics (53 percent), and millennial Catholics (58 percent).

---With regard to the death penalty, the range of answers is even smaller. At the high end, 60 percent of post-Vatican II Catholics say the Church is right in opposing the death penalty. At the low end, 55 percent of post-Vatican II Catholics agree with that statement.

Women are somewhat more pro-life on the abortion item (68 percent vs. 55 percent of men). But, the gender difference on the death penalty item is small, with 60 percent of women and 56 percent of men agreeing with the Church's efforts.

Religious factors have much more impact. For example, 62 percent of registered parishioners are opposed to abortion, compared to only half of non-parishioners. Sixty-four percent of parishioners support the Church opposition to the death penalty, compared to only 53 percent of non-parishioners.

The largest differences are between regular churchgoers and infrequent Mass attenders. Seventy-two percent of weekly Mass attenders are opposed to abortion versus only 29 percent of Catholics who seldom or never go the Mass. Likewise, 69 percent of Catholics who attend every week support the Church's opposition to the death penalty, compared to only 42 percent of those who never or almost never go to Mass.

In short, contrary to what one might hear on the streets or read in some publications, Catholics tend to be consistent in their views on these life issues, and the Church deserves a lot of credit for bringing about that situation. The more Catholics are involved in the Church, the more pro-life they tend to be.

James D. Davidson is professor of sociology at Purdue University in West Lafayette, Indiana. His most recent book is "Catholicism in Motion: The Church in American Society" (Liguori/Triumph, 2005).