The church will be built in country's second city, Santiago de Cuba.

Catholics in the city have been attending Mass in the street since Hurricane Sandy destroyed their previous ramshackle church.

Part of the new church will be built from the steel beams of the stage on which Pope Benedict XVI said Mass when he visited Havana in 2012.

The project will be funded in part by St Lawrence Parish in Tampa, Florida, most of whose members are Cuban exiles or descendants of exiles.

One final permit is required out of five before construction can begin.

The Archbishop of Santiago de Cuba, Dionisio Garcia Ibanez, told the BBC: "I think it's not only about improving attitudes to the Catholic Church, but to Churches in general.

"I think there's a better understanding of religious affairs, so we hope it won't only be this church that we build. We hope there'll be more."

He also cited growing ties between Cuba and socialist yet devout nations like Venezuela for the improved state outlook towards the Church.

In the early years after Fidel Castro became president, many church properties were confiscated by the Cuban government.

Since then, Catholics and other Christians have developed networks of "house churches" where there are not proper church buildings available.

Believers would baptise their children in secret or attend Mass surreptitiously in distant neighbourhoods

Up to now, the Catholic Church in Cuba was only permitted to renovate existing properties or rebuild where old ones collapsed.

Once officially atheist, Cuba is now a secular state.

Now even Communist Party members now practice their religion openly.

Sixty per cent of Cuba's population is Catholic, but only a fraction practises the faith.

Sources

• The Tablet
• BBC
• Image: Christian Science Monitor

The pope on Sunday said he wanted to express his sympathy to those hit by the devastating hurricane that struck Cuba, Haiti, Jamaica and the Bahamas "with particular violence."

Hurricane Sandy left nearly 60 dead in the Caribbean.

The pope called on followers to show their solidarity with those suffering, and to help relieve "the pain of the victims' relatives and offer help to the thousands of people who suffered damage."

In his address to pilgrims after the Angelus, the pope assured all those affected by the storm of his spiritual closeness, and promised to remember the victims in prayer.

Pope Benedict asked all the faithful to pray for those affected and issued a general call for concrete acts of solidarity.

"I wish to assure you of my closeness and my recollection of those who have been affected by this natural disaster, while I invite everyone to prayer and solidarity, in order to alleviate the pain of the families of the victims and offer support to the thousands of people who have been hurt in various ways by the storm," the pope said.

The hurricane strengthened on Monday after hundreds of thousands moved to higher ground, public transport shut down and the U.S. stock market in New York suffered its first weather-related closure in 27 years, Reuters reported.

About 50 million people from the Mid-Atlantic to Canada were in the path of the nearly 1,600-km-wide storm, which forecasters said could be the largest to hit the mainland in U.S. history.

It was expected to topple trees, damage buildings, cause power outages and trigger heavy flooding.

Nine U.S. states have declared states of emergency, and with the U.S. election eight days away President Barack Obama canceled a campaign event in Florida on Monday in order to return to Washington and monitor the U.S. government's response to the storm.

Sources

• AP/Montreal Gazette
• Independent Catholic News
• The Telegraph (video)
• Reuters
• Image: NASA