The Heights, a Catholic School, Draws Beltway Conservatives A student walks past a trophy case at The Heights School, a private all-boys institute in Potomac, Md., that is affiliated with the Catholic organization Opus Dei. POTOMAC, Md. - "Are your jackets on, boys?" Joe Cardenas inspects his charges in first-period freshman humanities class, sees that they are all appropriately blazered and standing tall, bows his head and begins the morning Hail Mary: "Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee ..." Only when they have finished the prayer do they take their jackets off. They sit and open copies of "Sir Gawain and the Green Knight," the 14th-century English romance. Mr. Cardenas teaches at The Heights School, a suburban Washington boys" school affiliated with Opus Dei, the Catholic organization of which he is a member. By the standards of more famous Washington private schools, like Sidwell Friends or Georgetown Preparatory, The Heights is poor, little known and young - it was founded in 1969. But since then it has become the popular school for a small clique of Washingtonians: conservative Catholics. Although he has made being a home-schooling dad part of his identity, the Republican presidential candidate Rick Santorum has sent two sons to The Heights. The school, for boys in grades 3-12, has also educated the sons of the Republican senators Mel Martinez and Chuck Hagel; the former F.B.I. director Louis J. Freeh; Maggie Gallagher, founder of the National Organization for Marriage; and Kate O'Beirne, an editor at National Review. Conservative Catholics are drawn to The Heights for its single-sex community, in which the faculty is male, and for its fidelity to Catholic teaching. More than that, parents say, they are glad to have found a community of like-minded families. Here they find a respect for church teachings that is absent even from most parish churches, where many communicants openly disagree with the pope on contraception, abortion and other topics. "I've got just one job as a dad," says Pat Kilner, a general contractor whose four sons (he also has five daughters) have attended The Heights. And that's to get these kids, who are gifts to me, to Heaven, so they can be in the eternal presence of the Lord. And none of my kids has left the church. Linda Maher, the school's director of communications, sent two sons to The Heights. Where the mothers at her sons" swim team practice "would put condoms in their sons" Christmas stockings," The Heights mothers were different. "Talking with other mothers, we shared a hope our sons would remain chaste until marriage," Ms. Maher says. I found it comforting to find other mothers who shared that ideal, and who felt it was possible here, that it was a hope that was supported here. Mr. Kilner and Ms. Maher are both members of Opus Dei, the organization that provides "spiritual formation" to The Heights. Opus Dei is known to millions of readers of "The Da Vinci Code," which presents a sensational and quite sinister portrait of the group. In real life, Opus Dei, which was founded in Spain in 1928 and claims 90,000 members, supports charities and advises schools, including six in the United States. Two percent of Opus Dei members are priests. The rest are laypeople who practice an intense daily prayer regimen that they believe imbues their jobs and family lives with Catholic spirit. Nearly a third of the lay members are "numeraries," who commit to lifelong celibacy and to acts of mortification, like the daily wearing of a cilice, a small spiked garter that can puncture the skin. Opus Dei does not run The Heights; it appoints the school chaplain and provides to the faculty a traditional reading of Catholicism to teach students. The only birth control taught is abstinence. The school has daily Mass (optional for older students). The list of suggested pleasure reading is heavy on Christian authors: Augustine, Dante, C.S. Lewis, Evelyn Waugh. "Between 10 and 15" of the 70 faculty members are in Opus Dei, said the headmaster, Alvaro de Vicente, a 1983 alumnus who became a numerary while at Georgetown University. Mr. Cardenas is a member of Opus Dei, as are the chief financial officer, assistant headmaster and director of communications. The Rev. Gerald S. Kolf, the chaplain, graduated from The Heights in 1976. He, too, became an Opus Dei numerary, committing to a lifetime of celibacy before graduating from high school. Years later, he became a priest. When asked if Heights students were joining Opus Dei, he said with an acceptant smile, "Not as many as I'd like." Only one current student, Father Kolf said, has joined Opus Dei, as a numerary. "He did choose to tell his friends, and it scared the daylights out of them," Father Kolf says. Because they thought we were coming after them. John L. Allen Jr., the author of "Opus Dei," a study of the organization, said that Opus Dei gave The Heights a mood and a conservative orientation, not a hidden recruitment agenda. In his 2005 book, he reported, relying on Mr. de Vicente's figures, that in the previous five years just one boy at the school had joined Opus Dei, but that "six or seven" alumni have as well. "The thing that struck me is the normality of the place," says Mr. Allen, who visited the school for his research. On the other hand, he said, it is not a diverse sampling of greater Washington. It was 2004, I was walking around the parking lot at The Heights and I counted bumper stickers: 53 Bush to 1 for Kerry. Twitter/markopp1; markoppenheimer.com.